Professor As’ad Abu Khalil refers to a public statement release by Amnesty International – Lebanon about those arrested “during” the cartoon protest on February 5, which ended up in the torching of the Danish embassy. Amnesty International claims that 42 of the Syrians arrested were not at the rally! Here’s what they have to say (read the whole statement, it also talks about beatings):
Those detained included some 42 Syrian nationals who, according to information received by Amnesty International, were arrested by Lebanese police at an apartment building in Tariq Jdeide, four kilometres away from the Danish Embassy, some of them while the protests were still in progress. They were arrested, apparently, after another Syrian who resides at the same building, was arrested at the demonstration.
Walid Jumblatt and Hariri Corp. will accuse Amnesty International of being a Syrian agent.
Blogging the Middle East 
Amnesty International – a Syrian agent?
I’m sure Peter Benenson would be would be thrilled!
Hehe, well, actually, the ‘Syrian agent’ bit was meant to be sarcastic (see the last sentence in the entry). 🙂
Yeah I understood it was satirical.
Many a true word spoken in jest 😉
Actually it would be a turn up for the books if Amnesty was found to be a totalitarian front…lol Certainly many bunny-huggers would have egg on their faces.
Amnesty as a totalitarian front. Well, that is not too hard to imagine. There are many organizations (“NGO”s, etc.) these days that claim to speak for human rights but are selective in doing so, bowing to the “interests” of their “home country” or just being created by these as a tool to put pressure on SOME dictatorships while “forgetting about” others…
Anyway, I am not a big fan of such organizations – I prefer that such work be done on an individual level, i.e. based on the conscience of individuals who do it on a daily basis – although they have admittedly achieved some good things.
Certainly NGO’s played a significant role in recent ‘peaceful’ revolutions in Ukraine etc. Didn’t Karimov in Uzbekistan kick them all out, and Putin has passed a law where they can be closed at the drop of a hat.