Amnesty's weak message

There is a certain point of view from which, or an angle of comparison in which, Mount Everest may be said to be like an upside-down bucket. But if one were indeed to say that the two were alike, in a matter where the scale of things was not unimportant, and if this were to bring forth a challenge, it might be as well simply to concede that in making the comparison it wasn't similarity of scale one had in mind but something else. It is therefore puzzling why Irene Khan and Amnesty International should want to stick by the recent statement that Guantanamo is the 'gulag of our times'. Millions of people perished in the Soviet Gulag. Millions. It matters. Wanting 'to send a strong message' is not - coming from Amnesty International - an adequate justification. I don't imagine anyone would be impressed if Amnesty itself, on account of this statement, were to be called the Joseph Goebbels of our time.

The message can be strong by being scrupulous, measured, accurate. Where the violation of fundamental human rights is concerned, no more than this is needed. Amnesty, of everybody, surely ought to know that. But they continue to compromise their function, becoming inappropriately politicized, going in for the type of hyperbole now standard within would-be progressive opinion.