1. Gita Sahgal was born on 1956 or 1957 and is a British writer, journalist, film director, feminist activist, and human rights activist, whose work focusses on the issues of feminism, fundamentalism, and racism.
26 Facts About Gita Sahgal
1. 2.
Gita Sahgal has been a co-founder and member of women's organisations.
3.
Gita Sahgal has been head of Amnesty International's Gender Unit, and has opposed the oppression of women in particular by religious fundamentalists.
4.
Gita Sahgal referred to him as "Britain's most famous supporter of the Taliban".
5.
Gita Sahgal was born in India, the daughter of the novelist Nayantara Sahgal.
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Gita Sahgal was raised as a Hindu, and is an atheist.
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Gita Sahgal is a great-niece of former Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and the granddaughter of his sister, Vijayalakshmi Pandit.
8.
Gita Sahgal returned to India in 1977, and began working in the civil rights movement.
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Gita Sahgal believes this exclusion of protection for immigrant religions contributes to the growth of sectarianism, and immigrants' turning towards religious fundamentalism.
10.
Gita Sahgal, who was against the United States and allies' invasion of Iraq, condemned the extrajudicial detention and torture of Muslim men at Guantanamo Bay.
11.
Gita Sahgal told Moazzam Begg, a British citizen and former Guantanamo Bay detainee, that she was "horrified and appalled" by the treatment he and other detainees received.
12.
Gita Sahgal is the executive director of the Centre for Secular Space, and an honorary associate of the National Secular Society.
13.
Gita Sahgal said she was not opposed to arranged marriages, unless the persons involved were abducted or subjected to physical or emotional abuse.
14.
Gita Sahgal joined the staff of Amnesty International in 2002, and became head of its gender unit the following year.
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Gita Sahgal came to public attention in February 2010, after she was quoted by The Sunday Times in an article about Amnesty and suspended by the organization.
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Gita Sahgal had criticised Amnesty for its high-profile associations with Moazzam Begg, the director of Cageprisoners, representing men in extrajudicial detention.
17.
Gita Sahgal argued that by associating with Begg and Cageprisoners, Amnesty was risking its reputation on human rights.
18.
Gita Sahgal said she repeatedly brought the matter up with Amnesty for two years, to no avail.
19.
Amnesty's Senior Director of Law and Policy, Widney Brown, later said Gita Sahgal raised concerns about Begg and Cageprisoners to her personally for the first time a few days before sharing them with The Sunday Times.
20.
Gita Sahgal issued a statement saying she felt that Amnesty was risking its reputation by associating with and thereby politically legitimising Begg, because Cageprisoners "actively promotes Islamic Right ideas and individuals".
21.
Gita Sahgal was interviewed on National Public Radio on 27 February 2010, where she discussed the activities of Cageprisoners and why she deemed it inappropriate for Amnesty to associate with Begg.
22.
Gita Sahgal said that Cageprisoners' Asim Qureshi spoke supporting global jihad at a Hizb ut-Tahrir rally.
23.
Gita Sahgal noted that a best seller at Begg's bookshop was a book by Abdullah Azzam, a mentor of Osama bin Laden and a founder of the terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba.
24.
Gita Sahgal said that Begg's bookshop had published The Army of Madinah, which she characterised as a jihad manual by Dhiren Barot.
25.
Gita Sahgal said the books sold at his bookstore did not mean that he was not "a legitimate voice on Guantanamo Bay abuses".
26.
Gita Sahgal is a woman of immense integrity and distinction.