Daqqa was convicted of heading a PFLP terror cell that abducted, tortured, castrated, gouged out the eyes* of and murdered Moshe Tamam, a soldier who was on leave, in 1984. They intended to smuggle him to Syria as a bargaining chip but when that became impossible they chose to mutilate and murder him instead.
Amnesty doesn't mention that.
Instead, it casts doubt on Daqqa's guilt altogether:
On 25 March 1986, Israeli forces arrested Walid Daqqah, then 24, a Palestinian citizen of Israel. In March 1987, an Israeli military court sentenced him to life imprisonment after convicting him of commanding the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)-affiliated group that had abducted and killed Israeli soldier Moshe Tamam in 1984. Daqqah was not convicted of carrying out the murder himself, but of commanding the group, an accusation he always rejected, and his conviction was based on British emergency regulations dating back to 1945, which require a much lower standard of proof for conviction than Israeli criminal law.
The PFLP's obituary of Daqqa, however, leaves no doubt that he was a member of that cell and was involved in the torture and murder:
[Daqqa] joined the ranks of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in 1983, and joined a military cell affiliated with the Front.In 1984, he conducted military training at the Front’s military bases in Syria, and then he contributed to the formation of a secret military apparatus for the Front inside the occupied interior, whose mission was to collect information about Zionist leaders and officials who participated in committing massacres in the invasion of Lebanon.The martyr Walid and his comrades within the military cell carried out a series of operations, including the kidnapping and killing of the Zionist soldier Moshe Tamam, as a result of which he and a group of comrades were arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment.
There is no denial here that Daqqa was guilty. But Amnesty doesn't want you to know that.
Instead of elaborating on Daqqa's heinous crime, Amnesty unabashedly praises him and treats him like a hero.
During his time in prison, Walid Daqqah wrote extensively about the Palestinian lived experience in Israeli prisons.He acted as a mentor and educator for generations of young Palestinian prisoners, including children. His writings, which included letters, essays, a celebrated play and a novel for young adults, were an act of resistance against the dehumanization of Palestinian prisoners. “Love is my modest and only victory against my jailer,” he once wrote.Walid Daqqah’s writings behind bars are a testament to a spirit never broken by decades of incarceration and oppression.
To Amnesty, this sadistic murderer was a role model. They even chose a picture of the unrepentant terrorist to make him look like a smiling, friendly person who wouldn't hurt a fly.
Amnesty pretended to condemn the kidnapping in murder of Tamam in a previous press release (that also implied that Daqqa confessed under torture) but this supposed human rights organization did everything they could to downplay his crime:
Amnesty International condemns the killing of Moshe Tamam as a violation of the Geneva Conventions’ absolute prohibition on violence to the life and person of armed forces members who have laid down their arms, including those in captivity.
This is a conscious attempt to minimize the crimes of the PFLP cell while accepting without question the accusations of the terrorists.
It is against international law to kidnap anyone - even a soldier - for the purposes of bargaining.
It is against international law to attack or kidnap a soldier who is on leave.
It is against international law to torture anyone, let alone the extreme torture Tamam was subjected to.
The only crime Amnesty is willing to admit is the prohibition of killing prisoners of war - but Tamam was not a prisoner of war since he was not a combatant.
For the purposes of the abduction, torture and murder, his rights were identical to that of civilians - his status as a soldier is irrelevant but Amnesty highlights his being a soldier, again, to minimize the heinousness and illegality of the crime.
This is a consistent pattern with Amnesty.They always exaggerate Israeli actions into the worst human rights abuses possible based on thin evidence and ignoring all counter-evidence, while at the very same time minimizing Palestinian human rights abuses and discounting or ignoring evidence and international laws that prove it.
Which is proof that Amnesty is either not a human rights organization, or that is doesn't consider Jews to be human.
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