Criticism of Amnesty International

Amnesty International has been criticized by many countries.

Guantánamo Bay comments

Protest against human rights violation at Guantánamo Bay prison (June 2006)

In the foreword[19] to Amnesty International's Report 2005,[20] the Secretary General, Irene Khan, referred to the Guantánamo Bay prison as "the gulag of our times, entrenching the practice of arbitrary and indefinite detention in violation of international law. Trials by military commissions have made a mockery of justice and due process." In the subsequent press conference, she added

"If Guantanamo evokes images of Soviet repression, 'ghost detainees' – or the incommunicado detention of unregistered detainees – bring back the practice of 'disappearances' so popular with Latin American dictators in the past. According to US official sources there could be over 100 ghost detainees held by the US. In 2004, thousands of people were held by the US in Iraq, hundreds in Afghanistan, and undisclosed numbers in undisclosed locations. AI is calling on the US Administration to close Guantanamo and disclose the rest".[21]

Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld believed the comments were "reprehensible", Vice President Dick Cheney said he was "offended", and President Bush said he believed the report was "absurd". The Washington Post editorialized that "lately the organization has tended to save its most vitriolic condemnations not for the world's dictators but for the United States."[22] The human rights organization Human Rights Watch also criticized the Bush administration over the camp in its 2003 world report, stating: "Washington has ignored human rights standards in its own treatment of terrorism suspects."[23]

Edmund McWilliams, a retired senior US Foreign Service Officer who monitored Soviet and Vietnamese abuse of prisoners in their "gulags", defended Amnesty International's comparison. "I note that abuses that I reported on in those inhumane systems parallel abuses reported in Guantanamo, at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan and at the Abu Ghraib prison: prisoners suspended from the ceiling and beaten to death; widespread 'waterboarding'; prisoners 'disappeared' to preclude monitoring by the International Committee of the Red Cross — and all with almost no senior-level accountability."[24]

Pavel Litvinov, human rights activist and former Soviet-era "gulag" prisoner, criticized the analogy saying, "By any standard, Guantanamo and similar American-run prisons elsewhere do not resemble, in their conditions of detention or their scale, the concentration camp system that was at the core of a totalitarian communist system."[18]

John Podhoretz writing in the New York Post on the difference between Guantanamo and a Soviet gulag said, "Maybe the people who work at Amnesty International really do think that the imprisonment of 600 certain or suspected terrorists is tantamount to the imprisonment of 25 million slaves. The case of Amnesty International proves that well-meaning people can make morality their life's work and still be little more than moral idiots."[25]

William F. Schulz, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA, defended the statement, saying, "What is 'absurd' is President Bush's attempt to deny the deliberate policies of his administration." and "What is 'absurd' and indeed outrageous is the Bush administration's failure to undertake a full independent investigation." Secretary General Irene Khan also responded saying, "The administration's response has been that our report is absurd, that our allegations have no basis, and our answer is very simple: if that is so, open up these detention centres, allow us and others to visit them."

Since the U.S. administration originally claimed that these prisoners were not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled against this interpretation (on 29 June 2006).[26] Following this, on 7 July 2006, the Department of Defense issued an internal memo stating that prisoners will in the future be entitled to protection under the Geneva Conventions.[27][28][29]

In 2010, Gita Sahgal, an Amnesty senior official, publicly condemned the organization for its collaboration with former Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg of Cageprisoners. In a letter to Amnesty's leadership, she wrote: "To be appearing on platforms with Britain's most famous supporter of the Taliban, whom we treat as a human rights defender, is a gross error of judgment." She warned that it "constitutes a threat to human rights".[30] Begg has toured Europe with Amnesty officials.[31] In 2010, Claudio Cordone asserted that Begg's views on holding talks with the Taliban or the role of jihad in self-defence were not antithetical to human rights, even though he may disagree with them. Cordone's assertion was criticized Amrita Chhachhi, Sara Hossain, and Sunila Abeysekera who said that "defensive jihad" or "defence of religion" is often used as an excuse to violate human rights by Muslim, Christian and Hindu extremists.[32]

In April 2007, Amnesty International changed its neutral stance on abortion to supporting access to abortion in cases of rape and incest, and when the life or the health of the mother might be threatened.[33] Amnesty's official policy is that they "do not promote abortion as a universal right" but "support the decriminalisation of abortion".[34] According to deputy secretary general Kate Gilmore, the debate over the change was difficult, but eventually the overwhelming majority of national Amnesty chapters supported the change. The change was opposed by several organizations, notably by senior figures in the Catholic Church, traditionally a strong supporter of Amnesty International,[35] and a group of US legislators. Amnesty spokeswoman Suzanne Trimel estimated that a "handful, probably less than 200" of over 400,000 members had quit over the issue.[9]

The Catholic Church's Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace in June 2007 issued a statement urging Catholics not to donate to Amnesty because of its abortion stance.[36] Cardinal Renato Martino said that abortion was murder, as was "to justify it selectively, in the event of rape, that is to define an innocent child in the belly of its mother as an enemy, as 'something one can destroy'". In an interview with the National Catholic Register, the Cardinal said he believed that "if in fact Amnesty International persists in this course of action, individuals and Catholic organizations must withdraw their support, because, in deciding to promote abortion rights, AI has betrayed its mission."[37] The Church withdrew funding globally for Amnesty, and churches in various locations took other steps to sever their ties with the group.[38]

A summary of an Amnesty International UK meeting held in 2013 revealed the intention to support the decriminalization of prostitution before any consultation with Amnesty members or stakeholders.[39][40] When a draft copy of the policy[41] was leaked in early 2014, many feminists and prostitution survivors condemned the proposal, and Amnesty was met with considerable criticism.[42][43][44] Members were consequently offered three weeks – from 2–21 April 2014 to provide feedback on the document, although most members did not even receive notification that this process was available to them.[45] On 7 July 2015 an updated draft was released to Amnesty International members,[46] which was again criticised by feminist organisations, including The Coalition Against Trafficking of Women (CATW), who published an open letter signed by over 400 advocates and organisations, condemning "Amnesty's proposal to adopt a policy that calls for the decriminalization of pimps, brothel owners and buyers of sex – the pillars of a $99 billion global sex industry".[47] Contrary to claims that decriminalisation would make prostituted people safer, critics pointed to research from numerous countries in which deregulation of the sex industry had produced catastrophic results: "the German government, for example, which deregulated the industry of prostitution in 2002, has found that the sex industry was not made safer for women after the enactment of its law. Instead, the explosive growth of legal brothels in Germany has triggered an increase in sex trafficking."[47] These campaigners instead asked Amnesty to support the so-called Nordic model, in which sex buyers and pimps are criminalized, while prostituted people are decriminalized. In early August, a large number of NGOs published an open letter in support of the decriminalization proposal. The organizations supporting Amnesty International's position included the Committee on the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe (ICRSE), Sex Workers' Rights Advocacy Network in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia (SWAN), Human Rights Watch, and the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women.[48]

On 11 August 2015, the International Council Meeting (ICM) adopted a resolution which authorized the International Board to develop and adopt the decriminalisation policy.[49]

Elliott Abrams, writing about the November 2012 Operation Pillar of Defense, says that Amnesty treats "Hamas and other terrorist groups [...] with an 'evenhandedness' that bespeaks deep biases", citing NGO Monitor's detailed research.[50]

The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs criticised the May 2012 report on administrative detention saying it was "one sided", and "not particularly serious", and "that it seemed little more than a public relations gimmick". Gerald Steinberg, of NGO Monitor, said that the report was tied to the recent Palestinian hunger strikes and that Amnesty "jumped on the bandwagon to help their Palestinian allies".[51] Steinberg also said that one of the researchers, Deborah Hyams, was not a neutral party, saying that "Hyams has volunteered as a 'human shield' in Beit Jala (near Bethlehem) to deter Israeli military responses to gunfire and mortars targeting Jewish civilians in Jerusalem," and that in 2008 she signed a letter claiming Israel is "a state founded on terrorism, massacres and the dispossession of another people from their land".[52]

The Israeli embassy in London called Amnesty "ridiculous". Amnesty said that this report "is not intended to address violations of detainees' rights by the Palestinian Authority, or the Hamas de facto administration. These violations have been and will continue to be addressed separately by the organisation".[53]

In May 2012, NGO Monitor criticized Amnesty's 2012 World Report in a few areas:

Amnesty criticized Israel's blockade on Gaza without mentioning that the blockade was in place "to stop the smuggling of weapons and rockets used to target Israeli citizens". NGO Monitor continued and said that "UN Secretary General's Palmer Committee declared in September 2011 that the blockade is legal under international law."

Amnesty "failed to mention the thousands of tons of goods provided by Israel to Gaza each week."

NGO Monitor also pointed out that Amnesty's report "mentions Israel 137 times, while making only 74 mentions of the Syrian regime", during a year in which thousands of people have been killed by the Syrian government.[54]

Amnesty allowed a speaking event to take place in London in May 2011, organized by the magazine Middle East Monitor Online (MEMO) and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Much controversy surrounded this event since one of the speakers included Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper. In the past, Atwan has said that "he would 'dance with delight' in Trafalgar Square if Iran attacked Israel, and that the terrorist attack on the Mercaz HaRav yeshiva, in which eight students were killed, "was justified" as it was responsible for "hatching Israeli extremists and fundamentalists". Amnesty responded by saying that "while we did have concerns about the way the event had originally been organized, these have been resolved".[55]

Amnesty also allowed a speaking event to take place in January 2012, which included a speaker who is viewed as anti-Israel. The UK's Zionist Federation said that the speaker "goes beyond the bounds of acceptable behavior" and asked that the event either not take place or that a pro-Israel speaker be allowed to attend as well. In addition, NGO Monitor's Gerald Steinberg said that the speaker's "intense hatred directed at Israel, which is the embodiment of Jewish sovereign equality in the world, is entirely inconsistent with the universal values that Amnesty claims to promote. If Amnesty seeks to restore its tarnished moral credentials, it must end this cooperation, and join in denouncing White's anti-Israel campaigns."[56]

Some people have criticized Amnesty for promoting an unbalanced and excessive focus on Israel. The American Jewish Congress asserts that Amnesty's criticism of Israel distorts the law of war by "read[ing] the law of war as if it was a law banning war", and misinterprets the Geneva Conventions with regard to the issue of proportionality in war.[57] Yael Beck and Merav Fima of NGO Monitor, a Pro-Israel NGO, claim the Amnesty has an "obsession with Israel" and "persistently condemns Israel while ignoring suffering elsewhere".[58]

Alan Dershowitz, professor of law at Harvard University, in his book The Case for Israel, is very critical of Amnesty and their comparison of Israel to nations such as Sudan and other human rights offenders. Amnesty International has consistently called on Israel to bring any officer suspected of human rights violations to justice and to remove its settlements in the West Bank. It has also opposed "discrimination" against Arab citizens of Israel, and says that the Law of Return and Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law are discriminatory, as they grant automatic citizenship to Jews worldwide, while denying Palestinian refugees the right of return. It has also opposed the blockade of the Gaza Strip, calling it "collective punishment".

In 2010 Frank Johansson, the chairman of Amnesty International-Finland called Israel a nilkkimaa, a derogatory term variously translated as "scum state", "creep state" or "punk state".[59][60] Johansson stood by his statement, saying that it was based on Israel's "repeated flouting of international law", and his own personal experiences with Israelis. When asked by a journalist if any other country on earth that could be described in these terms, he said that he could not think of any, although some individual "Russian officials" could be so described.[60] According to Israeli professor Gerald M. Steinberg of NGO Monitor: "Amnesty International has promoted an intense anti-Israel ideology, resulting in statements like these."[60]

In November 2012, Amnesty UK began a disciplinary process against staffer Kristyan Benedict, Amnesty UK campaigns manager, because of a posting on his Twitter account, said to be anti-semitic, regarding three Jewish members of parliament and Operation Pillar of Defense where he wrote: "Louise Ellman, Robert Halfon and Luciana Berger walk into a bar ... each orders a round of B52s ... #Gaza". Amnesty International UK said "the matter has been referred to our internal and confidential processes." Amnesty's campaigns director Tim Hancock said, "We do not believe that humour is appropriate in the current circumstances, particularly from our own members of staff." An Amnesty International UK spokesperson later said the charity had decided that "the tweet in question was ill-advised and had the potential to be offensive and inflammatory but was not racist or antisemitic."[61][62][63]

In December 2019, a 200-page report on Amnesty International commissioned by Jewish Human Rights Watch argued that the NGO is strongly biased against the Jewish state.[64] Amnesty responded that the report's author is "an individual with a very clear agenda. He did not approach us for comment or give us right of reply before publishing any of these allegations."[65]

In February 2017, Amnesty International reported that between 5,000 and 13,000 prisoners had been tortured to death by the Syrian government at the Sednaya Prison between 2011 and 2016, describing it as a "Human Slaughterhouse", a claim that has been strenuously denied by the Syrian Government who described the allegations as "false" and part of a wider smear campaign against the Government.[66]

On 19 November 2019, Amnesty International reported that at least 106 civilians had been "unlawfully killed" by Iranian security forces during the 2019 Iranian protests which were triggered by outrage over a sudden increase in gasoline prices.[67] Amnesty later revised the figure upwards to 304, claiming that unarmed protesters had been deliberately massacred by the authorities who had "green lighted" a brutal crackdown to suppress dissent.[68] The Iranian authorities, whilst acknowledging that some armed rioters had been shot by police, rejected Amnesty's figure as "sheer lies" and part of a "disinformation campaign waged against Iran from outside the country".[69]

Judiciary spokesman, Gholamhussein Esmayeeli, countered that it was armed rioters who had actually killed many people, but that Amnesty and other organizations had nonetheless, "named people who have died in other incidents that are different from the recent riots and many of those people claimed to be killed are alive".[70] Secretary of Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani, also denied that civilian deaths were caused mostly by security forces and instead asserted that, "more than 85 percent of victims of the recent unrest in cities of Tehran province had not taken part in any of the protests.".[71] In a thinly veiled rebuttal to Amnesty, Prosecutor-General Mohammad Montazeri retorted that, "people, who are outside the country, have no access to exact information and accurate figures. They provide different figures which are invalid."[72] In its 16 December press release, Amnesty's research director for MENA, Philip Luther, moreover, did not acknowledge the widespread arson, vandalism and looting apparent during the protests/riots, that led to the forceful response, or the reported killing of security officers either. He also appeared to misquote supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, as stating that all those protesting in the streets were "villains". The Iranian leader had, in fact, distinguished between those peacefully objecting to the govermmemt policy and those who destroyed property: "Some people are no doubt worried by this decision (to raise the price of gasoline) ... but sabotage and arson is done by villains, not our people."[73] Ayatollah Khamenei further elaborated that those killed in any crossfire between the security forces and armed rioters/saboteurs were to be regarded as "martyrs".[74]

On 20 May 2020, Amnesty published a final report on the protests where, for the first time, it named 232 out of the 304 alleged victims.[75] Amnesty also acknowledged that many of those killed were bystanders who were not even protesting at the time of their death. The report was itself heavily criticized by two independent analysts who accused Amnesty of distorting many facts, making unsupported claims and ignoring key evidence.[76] On 1 June 2020, an Iranian lawmaker, Mojtaba Zolnour, made it known that 230 persons had been killed, including 6 security officers and 40 from the Baseej volunteer force. More than a quarter were bystanders whom he alleged were killed by rioters.[77]

In February 2019, Amnesty International's management team offered to resign. The offer came after an independent report by Konterra group found what it called a "toxic culture" of workplace bullying, as well as numerous evidences of bullying, harassment, sexism and racism. The report was commissioned by Amnesty after the investigation of the suicides of 30-year Amnesty veteran Gaetan Mootoo in Paris in May 2018 (who left a note citing work pressures), and 28-year-old intern Rosalind McGregor in Geneva in July 2018.[78] The Konterra report found that: "39 per cent of Amnesty International staff reported that they developed mental or physical health issues as the direct result of working at Amnesty". The report concluded, "organisational culture and management failures are the root cause of most staff wellbeing issues.".[79]

The report said that efforts by Amnesty to address its problems had been "ad hoc, reactive, and inconsistent," and that staff described the senior leadership team as out-of-touch, incompetent and callous. Those signing a letter offering to resign were the senior directors of research, the Secretary General's office, global fundraising, global operations, people and services, law and policy and campaigns and communications. However, Amnesty International's Secretary General Kumi Naidoo did not accept resignations and instead offered generous redundancies to managers concerned, including to Mootoo's senior director Anna Neistat directly implicated in the report on Mootoo's death. Naidoo stated that his priority was "to rebuild trust at a dangerous time when Amnesty was needed more than ever".[78]

After none of the managers responsible of bullying at Amnesty were held accountable, a group of workers petitioned for Amnesty's chief to resign. On 5 December 2019 Naidoo resigned from his post of Amnesty's Secretary General, citing ill health.[80] Julie Verhaar was appointed as interim Secretary General the same day.[81]

In 2019 Amnesty International's Secretary General Kumi Naidoo admitted to a hole in the organization's budget of up to £17m in donor money to the end of 2020. In order to deal with the budgetary crisis Naidoo announced to staff that the organization's headquarters would have cut almost 100 jobs as a part of urgent restructuring. Unite the Union, the UK's biggest trade union, said the redundancies were a direct result of "overspending by the organisation's senior leadership team" and have occurred "despite an increase in income".[82] Unite, which represents Amnesty's staff, feared that cuts would fall heaviest on lower income staff. It said that in the previous year the top 23 highest earners at Amnesty International were paid a total of £2.6m– an average of £113,000 per year. Unite demanded a review of whether it is necessary to have so many managers in the organisation.[83]

On 29 September 2020, the Indian offshoot of Amnesty International released a statement announcing suspension of its operations in the country after the Enforcement Directorate, which investigates financial crimes and irregularities in India, ordered the freezing of its bank accounts.[84] In a statement, the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs said that Amnesty had contravened Indian laws by receiving funds from abroad. Amnesty, which said it had been harassed by the Indian government for its actions on human rights, particularly for its call accountability in Indian administered Kashmir, denied the charges and stated that it would appeal in Indian courts.[85][86][87]

Earlier, in 2009, Amnesty's Indian offshoot suspended its India operations as the UPA government rejected its application for receiving foreign funding.[87]

• Criticism of Human Rights Watch

• American Gulag at National Review Online, (27 May 2005).
• Jonathan V. Last, Calling It Like They See It, The Weekly Standard, 3 April 2003.
• Nabeel Abraham, Torture, Anyone?, Lies of Our Times, May 1992, pp. 2–4. Claims AI and other groups are reticent in describing alleged torture on the part of Israel.