The al-Qaeda theorist Anwar al-Awlaki has an expansive network of supporters in the United Kingdom. My colleague Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens has produced an authoritative report on the matter for the Centre for Social Cohesion - a think tank that has consistently warned us about Awlaki. I won't reproduce the report here, but would urge readers of this blog to consult it very closely.

I recently had a lengthy interview with Huseyin Sermet, one of Turkey's foremost concert pianists and composers. He is playing tonight at the Queen Elizabeth Hall - his debut, quite incredibly, in the South Bank's International Piano Series - so if you too love his unusually rich and musical interpretation of Mussorgsky's Baba Yaga and Great Gate of Kiev, below, do come along and hear him.

Yet another embarrassing failure for Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the prosecutor who has yet to achieve a single conviction after six-and-half years at the International Criminal Court.

ALEXANDER MELEAGROU-HITCHENS

In yesterday's Sunday Times, CagePrisoners (CP) was criticised for promoting al-Qaeda preacher Anwar al-Awlaki on their site.  The group's head, Moazzam Begg, responded by saying that ‘I don't consider anybody a terrorist until they have been charged and convicted of terrorism.'  The only problem with this is that his organisation's website is replete with profiles and sympathetic interviews with convicted terrorists.  Rightly, Begg follows the ‘innocent until proven guilty' line, but when they are convicted, CP seem to give the terrorists a lot of sympathy.

Amnesty International and Cageprisoners

Statement by Gita Sahgal

7 February 2010

This morning the Sunday Times published an article about Amnesty International’s association with groups that support the Taliban and promote Islamic Right ideas. In that article, I was quoted as raising concerns about Amnesty’s very high profile associations with Guantanamo-detainee Moazzam Begg. I felt that Amnesty International was risking its reputation by associating itself with Begg, who heads an organization, Cageprisoners, that actively promotes Islamic Right ideas and individuals.

Within a few hours of the article being published, Amnesty had suspended me from my job.

SHIRAZ MAHER

My colleagues Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens and Nick Cohen have already blogged about the bravery of Gita Sahgal for speaking up about Amnesty International's accommodation of Moazzam Begg in today's Sunday Times.

Depressingly, it now appears that Sahgal has been suspended by Amnesty.