The problem appears to be that because Senegal's culture is so homophobic, the local people who are Amnesty activists don't believe they should count gays as prisoners of conscience.

What do you recommend AI *should* do, in places where its on-the-ground support (and therefore its means of looking credible and non-colonialist and having any kind of effect on government actions) depends on people who don't believe punishing people for gay acts is wrong? (that's a serious question by the way, not rhetorical snark).

A good question, and I'm not sure I have a good answer, to be honest.

However, I have been repeatedly told of late by Amnesty's supporters that the organisation isn't anti-American, that it's fighting all injustices everywhere, and that it's just the media who happen to be giving prominence to the criticisms of the US. Not true, as it turns out.

And since when are the views of local people so important? I've not noticed Amnesty ever saying, for instance, "Well, the problem is that because Sudan's culture is so Wahhabist, the local people don't believe they should count Christians as prisoners of conscience, so there's not much we can do, really. Sorry about that." Amnesty's defenders will tell me that no organisation should sacrifice any of it's principles in the fight against the Bush Administration just in order to retain influence with the US Government — and I'd agree with that, though I might disagree with some of the principles. The whole point of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is that it's universal.

I'd probably do what Amnesty are doing, because I'm a pragmatist; one bridge at a time, and all that. But Amnesty are supposed to be idealists. They didn't think the international fight against Soviet Communism was worth compromising on human rights in South America. And they never have any qualms about throwing away any influence they might have had on the Israeli Government, happily slandering away. But, apparently, the Senegalese are a different matter. If Amnesty's policy is now that they try to choose the lesser of two evils, I think they should admit that they've entered the world of morally grubby diplomacy and stop claiming to be dealing in moral absolutes such as human rights.