“To live like a tree, lonely and free / To live as brothers like trees in a forest”

About Gita Sahgal

Gita Sahgal is a founder of the Centre for Secular Space, which opposes fundamentalism, amplifies secular voices and promotes universality in human rights. She was formerly Head of the Gender Unit at Amnesty International. She is a film maker and writer. For many years she served on the board of Southall Black Sisters and she was a founder of Women Against Fundamentalism and Awaaz : South Asia Watch..

Articles by Gita Sahgal

Backlash against Bangladeshi bloggers

Gita Sahgal 29 April 2013

The bloggers of Shahbagh are facing a backlash – hunted by fundamentalists, denounced in mosques as atheists, arrested by the government. Those abroad are under threat. Meanwhile activists are still demanding justice and cyber movements are using their mobilising power to deal with disasters.

Bangladesh: the forgotten template of 20th century war

Gita Sahgal 10 October 2012

In 1971 the Jamaat e Islami supported the Pakistani army against the nationalist Awami League: now their leaders are being indicted by an international crimes tribunal and secularism is back on the agenda. It's time to discuss the forgotten role of the fundamentalist militias in the war of liberation of Bangladesh

Bangladesh : the forgotten template of 20th century war

Gita Sahgal 1 October 2012

Who wrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ?

Gita Sahgal 9 December 2011

Many of the assumptions about who wrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are wrong. Gita Sahgal tells the less known story of the men and women who wrote this foundational, emancipatory and anti-colonial document

Amnesty: working against oblivion?

Gita Sahgal 26 May 2010

Human rights groups cannot tell the story of the times in which we live. There is a void, where there should be analysis of the organizational forms and ideological links of western Islamists

This week's guest editors

Our guest editors James Ron, Leslie Vinjamuri, Sophie Arie and Archana Pandya introduce this week's theme of:

Emerging powers and human rights.

Nobel Women's Initiative

Europe from the bottom up

A new Europe can only come from the bottom up
Etienne Balibar

Mali: the plot thickens

Remote control war

oDRussia at journalismfestival .com

openDemocracy Ltd, The Print House, 18 Ashwin Street, London, E8 3DL. Tel: +44 (0) 207 193 0676

openDemocracy

Welcome to openDemocracy! We are a digital commons, publishing high quality news analysis, debates and blogs about the world and the way we govern ourselves. More...

Latest from the oD blog.

Syria and Geneva II

Best of the rest:

Arab Awakening | Can Europe Make it? | Drug and Criminal Justice Policy Forum | OurBeeb

OurKingdom

About us
OurKingdom works to investigate and illuminate the crisis of democracy in Britain and analyse how its failings can be redressed.

We encourage original debate untrammelled by party political loyalties.

We ask how we as citizens can secure liberty, human rights, self-government and real democracy. ...more on OurKingdom

Pick of the debates: Democratic Wealth: building a citizens' economy, edited by Stuart White, uses republican theory to explore ideas around how to democratise the economy. Co-hosted with Politics in Spires, a blog sponsored by the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

oD Russia

50.50

Recent articles on 50.50

50.50 Dialogues

About 50.50
50.50 is openDemocracy's section dedicated to exploring issues of gender equality and social justice at the global level.

We are committed to promoting human rights and inclusive democracy through dialogue and debate. But a global debate without the female half of humanity is neither global nor democratic. With this in mind, 50.50 publishes women's analysis, insight and views on current affairs.

Can Europe Make It?

Spread the word

Spread the word is a brand new section of openDemocracy's not-for-profit web platform.

This space is for other not-for-profit organisations of all kinds to publicise your activities and spread the exchange of ideas.

You will be able to link to all your publications, and events anywhere in the world. You will have your own openDemocracy page and all new announcements will be ticker-taped to our front page.

This organisation subscription is available for a modest annual fee, dependent on the size of your organisation.

Please contact Jonathan Bowles at supporters@opendemocracy.net if you are interested in joining.

If you're interested in developing editorial projects on openDemocracy, please see our Editorial partnerships page

We are grateful to the following organisations for their support in developing this initiative:

Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre

Rockefeller Brothers Fund

openSecurity

openEconomy

Arab Awakening

In the months following the start of the Arab Revolutions, articles and analysis poured into openDemocracy from contributors across the Middle East and Europe. Gradually, the impact of Tahrir Square began to extend well beyond the Middle East as democratic inspiration travelled from east to west. Arab Awakening tries to capture that inspiration and use it to help us read a rapidly changing world.

"As students of politics is it is vital to study the power of imagination." -Professor Charles Tripp, SOAS

Debates

Columnists | This week's window on the Middle East

OurNHS

AddThis

About Gita Sahgal

Articles by Gita Sahgal

Backlash against Bangladeshi bloggers

Bangladesh: the forgotten template of 20th century war

Bangladesh : the forgotten template of 20th century war

Who wrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ?

Amnesty: working against oblivion?

This week's guest editors

A Turkish Spring?

Woolwich - terror or conflict?

Iran myths

Palestinian borders

Nobel Women's Initiative

Europe from the bottom up

The media in Europe

Mali: the plot thickens

Remote control war

oDRussia at journalismfestival .com

Stay Informed

Advertising notice

Cities in Conflict

Window on the Middle East

Most popular

openDemocracy on Twitter

openDemocracy on Facebook

Our Authors

Secondary links