Amnesty International Appoints UK Muslim Brotherhood Figure As Communications Director

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The GMBDW has learned that in June of this year, UK Muslim Brotherhood figure Osama Saeed (aka Osama Saeed Bhutta) became the Communications Director for Amnesty International. According to a report by a news portal covering corporate communications:

June 21, 206 2016 Osama Saeed Bhutta has joined Amnesty International as communications director, after departing Al Jazeera earlier this year.

Bhutta, who spent five years in charge of the Middle Eastern media network’s global communications, relocates to London for the Amnesty International role. Reporting to senior director of campaigns and communications, Thomas Schultz-Jagow, Bhutta’s role is a restructured one that aims to integrate traditional communications and digital.

Prior to Al Jazeera, he worked as a PR consultant and SNP parliamentary candidate in his native Scotland.

Amnesty International is a non-governmental organisation focused on human rights with over seven million members and supporters around the world.”

A 2009 UK media report indicated that Osama Saeed enjoyed a close relationship with Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond for whom he used to work as a researcher and he was an unsuccessful candidate in 2007 for the Scottish parliament on the ticket of the Scotttish Nationalist Party (SNP). Saeed was an official of the Scottish Islamic Foundation (SIF), officially launched in 2008 and reported by a UK think-tank to have had ties to the Global Muslim Brotherhood. Saeed resigned in 2012 as head of the SIF along with most other SIF official following disclosures of misuse of public funds by the SIF. Saeed was also the former Scottish representative of the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), essentially the Muslim Brotherhood in Britain. The 2009 UK media report referenced above documents Saeed’s controversial Islamist background including calls for an Islamic Caliphate and equivocal stands on terrorism while a UK think-tank report, also referenced above, details Mr. Saeed’s support for the “global Caliphate” as well as his defense of Global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi.

In August 2015, the GMBDW reported that the Times of London had published a series of three articles detailing an investigation into the relationship of a senior Amnesty International employee to a group of organizations and individuals tied to the Muslim Brotherhood and/or Hamas in the UK. The summary article begins: 

A senior employee of Amnesty International has undeclared private links to men alleged to be key players in a secretive network of global Islamists, The Times can reveal.

The charity was unaware that the husband of its director of faith and human rights featured in documents released after a criminal trial at which connections were revealed between British supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and Arab Islamists accused of plotting to overthrow a Gulf state.

Yasmin Hussein was also linked to a Yorkshire-based aid agency that was banned by Israel for its alleged funding of Hamas terrorism; and criticised by colleagues for holding a private meeting with a Muslim Brotherhood government official during an Amnesty mission to Egypt, and staying overnight at his family’s home.

Ms Hussein, 51, was until recently the charity’s head of international advocacy and among its leading voices at the UN, where the organisation seeks to operate a strict policy of not siding with any government or political party.

Amnesty staff are asked to declare any links that may generate a real or perceived conflict of interest with its independence and impartiality.

The Brotherhood is banned as a terrorist organisation in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, but not in Britain. An inquiry into its role and influence in this country was ordered by David Cameron last year. The findings have yet to be published.

Read the rest here (paywall)

The second article can be found here (paywall).

The third article can be found here (paywall).

Breitbart has also published a very good summary of this story:

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