Head of Public Policy Tim Dieppe comments after Amnesty International retracted their report indicting Christian Concern and other Christian organisations
Last week, the UK branch of Amnesty International published a report entitled: “A growing threat: the anti-rights movement in the UK.”
Dozens of Christian organisations and many other organisations were dubbed ‘anti-rights’ in this report. Amnesty may not recover from the severe backlash it provoked.
Christian groups listed as ‘anti-rights’
The report lists 117 organisations which Amnesty deems ‘anti-rights’ because of their pro-life or gender critical positions.
Christian Concern is listed as one such organisation as is the Christian Legal Centre. Several other Christian organisations are also branded ‘anti-rights’ including: CARE, CBR UK, Brephos, Evangelical Alliance, The Christian Institute, Christian Medical Fellowship, Catholic Medical Association, IFTCC, Affinity, Evangelicals Now, Premier, Christians in Parliament, Family Education Trust, Conservative Christian Fellowship, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association UK, and Catholic Bishops Conference of England and .
Also listed are dozens of other pro-life organisations and dozens of gender critical organisations.
Christian Concern and some others of these organisations are used to being targeted for boldly tackling contentious issues like transgenderism and abortion. Others of those listed are Christian media outlets or groups that are rarely in the media which are not often attacked for being contentious. Some might be considered meek by comparison. What this report illustrates is that no one is safe. Being polite and gentle will not save you from the attacks against Christians when they come.
The report called on the Charity Commission to review the charitable status of all the charities listed.
Huge backlash
Amnesty quickly received a lot of criticism for listing these organisations as anti-rights. There was a massive social media storm about it.
John Cleese tweeted, saying:
I was once a major fund-raiser for Amnesty
But in those days it was about preventing torture
Not about sexual identity
I disown them
JK Rowling’s organisation Beira’s Place, which supports sexual assault victims, was listed in the report. Rowling posted saying: “It appears that (as many of us have suspected for years) Amnesty believes certain kinds of humans don’t deserve rights: women, girls and those who are proudly same-sex attracted. I hope donors from those groups are taking note.”
Later Rowling followed up posting that her Women’s fund would be willing to support legal action against Amnesty by women’s organisations.
Amnesty backtracks
Within 48 hours the report was removed from Amnesty’s website. It can still be downloaded and read here.
A statement initially claimed that the report had been temporarily withdrawn so that an internal review could be carried out.
Later, Amnesty put out a statement saying:
“We regret that this briefing was uploaded to our website without going through the established internal review processes that are in place to ensure consistency, accuracy and alignment with Amnesty International UK’s positions.”
“Its use of language does not reflect the position of Amnesty International UK which is why it was promptly removed.
“We remain committed to defending human rights, including both the rights of women and the rights of trans people.
“Human rights protections are strongest when they apply equally to everyone, and no community should be singled out for unfair treatment or denied their dignity and rights.”
This is a clear non-apology.
One journalist commented that calling for removal of charitable status and funding meets the criteria for serious financial loss required for a successful libel action. This may well be what prompted Amnesty to withdraw their report. Indeed, various organisations have written to Amnesty threatening legal action for defamation.
Amnesty on the wrong side of rights
The multiple successes in our cases relating to Christian freedoms and right to life show that Christian Concern, far from being ‘anti-rights’ is actually very much on the right side of rights. Truth is on our side. It is Amnesty that is now anti-rights.
Amnesty’s reputation damaged
The fall-out from its publication of this report is ongoing and continues to attract press coverage. Criticising human rights organisations in the name of human rights is blatantly absurd.
It is also astonishing that not one Islamic organisation was named in this report as anti-rights. Yet dozens of Christian organisations were singled out. In fact, so many Christian organisations are listed that it appears they went out of their way to name as many Christian organisations as they could think of. All this shows is that Amnesty has now become anti-Christian.