Amnesty International Statement on FiLiA

[OhHolyJesus]

"Amnesty International UK did not organise any protests at the FiLiA conference in Portsmouth which took place on 16 and 17 October 2021.
We have a long history of campaigning against violence against women and this continues to be a vital part of our work.

We are equally committed to campaigning for the rights of transgender people to live freely, authentically, and openly, and to have their gender legally recognised without having to go through a dehumanising, long and costly procedure.

Amnesty International has clear guidelines on how we campaign. We will only support protests by any individuals, groups or communities which are in line with Amnesty’s core values, including not using or advocating violence, hatred or discrimination while protesting; and that the protests themselves should be consistent with international human rights law and standards.

We were approached by the organisers of a Fly the Flag event in Portsmouth at the weekend, who requested that we supply materials which reflect Amnesty International UK’s campaigning positions on the LGBTQ human rights.

Two sets of placards were sent. One set of signs stated the slogan “I AM WHO I SAY I AM: Amnesty International”. The second set of signs stated the slogan “LOVE IS A HUMAN RIGHT: Amnesty International”. The organiser of the Fly the Flag event stated that their protest would be respectful and celebratory and that she would seek dialogue with delegates to the conference. We were happy to support the Fly the Flag event in this way.
However, the event was not an official Amnesty International UK event and a sign that was displayed describing this as an official Amnesty International UK protest event was incorrect.

We have investigated events from the weekend. There were several separate groups holding events and protests outside the Guildhall in Portsmouth. Our understanding remains the case that the Fly the Flag Event was respectful and appropriate and was not connected with the threatening and aggressive language and images that were present in other parts of Guildhall Square that weekend. Photographs of the threatening and aggressive language and images displayed by other protestors present at the Guildhall have been shared with us and we are shocked by it.

We recognise that the FiLiA conference was attended by a number of women who have been the victims of violence and harassment. Amnesty International UK believes there should have been absolutely no place for the use of any threatening or aggressive language or imagery towards any of the attendees of that conference, or indeed towards any women."

www.amnesty.org.uk/statement-section-following-portsmouth-conference-october-2021

Bollocks.

Take bloody responsibility.

The signs they did send were awful and meaningless.

Lesson in not affiliating yourself with unofficial protests here?

Perhaps stick to your original charter? Fighting for the rights of people who are actually oppressed, rather than those that identify as such (for which there is no empirical data to support such oppression).

I cannot fathom why so many organisations/institutions/charities who have been captured are STILL not smelling the coffee.

The sunlight is upon them but they keep slathering on factor 50 thinking it will protect them whilst simultaneously standing in the midday sun.

I feel like I'm living in the twilight zone when Amnesty International feel it's ok to picket a feminist conference and people have absolutely no shame rallying against a gay and lesbian event.

Theyre all absolutely proud of it no less.

'The organiser of the Fly the Flag event stated that their protest would be respectful and celebratory and that she would seek dialogue with delegates to the conference. '

That should be a no.

Women many of whom will be on their own. Attending a conference about women's issues around the world. Things that are outrageous, horrific. And for some will have personal reasons for attending ie experience of MVAWG.

Approaching them to start a dialogue... ???? About trans rights presumably. When that's not at all what the conference is about.

That's surely a no-no?

The assumption that all the women going have the same view on that? Why????

It's a feminist conference FFS. Not a rally for evil witches to plot on a single topic!

That in itself is a terrible look for amnesty and it's in their 'wasn't me' response!!!

Edit; “we supplied our placards for people to use to protest the Conference”

'We recognise that the FiLiA conference was attended by a number of women who have been the victims of violence and harassment. Amnesty International UK believes there should have been absolutely no place for the use of any threatening or aggressive language or imagery towards any of the attendees of that conference, or indeed towards any women."'

But approaching them (to say what?) is fine.

Rightyho!

[quote NCBlossom]**@foxgoosefinch* and @LobsterNapkin*

What really angers and saddens me is, who is fighting for those being tortured, imprisoned, threatened, losing their jobs etc just for speaking up? Now that Amnesty have decided to spend all their charitable funds on people wanted to use a woman’s changing room?

Who now is writing letters, like I used to, for gay prisoners, rights activists or people being tortured for opposing a regime? What is happening to those people now that people just don’t seem to care? Those student activists - are they all just writing placards with sexually violent threats to feminists instead?

Woe is me, is this really the world and what it cares about now?[/quote]
Equating using opposite sex change rooms with being a political prisoner is completely alternate dimension in scope.

But I would say that even if we were talking about something that we might have more sympathy for, it was a mistake for Amnesty to try and combine rights for political prisoners with these other issues.

What would in a regime where people were being imprisoned for speaking out against some policy or belief that AI approved of, or were lobbying for?

Sometimes it's important to have organisations with a focused remit. Similarly for the various civil liberties orgs.

And I am Marie of Romania.

LobsterNapkin
"they clearly don't believe that citizens should be free to make all kinds of political arguments. So maybe it seems less relevant."

In Ireland where there are "no problems"

housed in the female prison in Limerick
Capacity 28 females
i) a male serving for sex offences/child abuse convictions
ii) a male with conviction from violent attack on female social worker (had been placed in care at about 10 after attacking mother) currently out on bail pending trial for plotting to kill 2 people
With only around 500 self ID gender recognition certs issued do date to (male and/or female applicants) we should all agree "the policy has had absolutely no impact on anyone other than trans people, making their lives easier."

And Amnesty Ireland signed the letter TLDR if you don't Believe / "repent MotherF...er"
you should be denied political representation

I don't see what you are directing your comment at me, Solas?

They’re obviously still fully on board with self-ID, but the optics are beginning to be so awful that even they can’t continue to ignore them or pretend that the constant bullying and women-hate is acceptable.

Puuuullllllllll!

@2Rebecca

The only "rights" that exist in a society are those that are upheld by law. My right to life only exists if it is illegal to kill me. If I am a soldier in a war like WW1 I don't have a right to life because the other side will be trying to kill me and it is legal for them to try and kill me in war. A "right to love" implies that the law could compel someone to love someone else even if they didn't and didn't want to. That would obviously be a bad unenforceable law. It makes me think of incels and paedophiles. As a slogan it's pants.

Yes! As a victim of child sexual abuse this made my blood run cold. Amnesty can fuck right off. Nobody has a right to love from me. They can pitch for it and I'll decide- or vice versa. I've cancelled my direct debit. I feel stupid as I didn't realise sooner just how much they had moved from protecting women and girls. This crystallised it..

[quote NCBlossom]@foxgoosefinch 100% agree with you. I feel like I’ve just lifted the lid on a casket of monsters, Amnesty being one of them.

I cancelled my membership, specifically because of the sexually violent threats. I did not mention trans issues at all. Yet I received an exact same email with the ‘lecture’ on trans rights, even though I had not even mentioned trans issues as a reason. I think their reply is horrific if I’m honest. There is zero justification of sexual threats to women who were bravely talking about their sexual abuse - and Amnesty should be absolutely ashamed and reviewing their whole stance on this.

However they are obviously not. So I quickly googled what Amnesty’s stance was, and how much energy was going into their backing of trans preferences to be able to go into all women’s spaces. It’s a real eye opener. They are all over it, they have commissioned weird research into sex at birth, they are full of anti safeguarding rhetoric, they have so lost their way that I do not think they will ever find it again. Such a waste. I”m sorry but someone being tortured just for being gay or opposing a regime is what we should care about, and they obviously don’t anymore.[/quote]
Sounds like they’ve perhaps received some very generous donations from rich transwomen or their families. This weird research may have been off the back of this. Maybe even sponsored by patrons.

See article about how LGBT nonprofits and their billionaire patrons are reshaping the world…www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/how-lgbt-nonprofits-and-their-billionaire-patrons-are-reshaping-the-world/.

From a quick google, I don’t think Jennifer Pritzker, the only known trans billionaire with a net worth $2 Bn has given money. Say hi to Jennifer [[https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelatindera/2020/09/24/billionaire-jennifer-pritzker-a-former-trump-donor-makes-her-first-contribution-to-joe-biden/?sh=5d736857cbf3)). JP gives money predominantly to a lot of political candidates - this article is about giving to Joe Biden having previously given to Trump. Perhaps other members of the Pritzker family have donated to AI? Idk.

It would appear AI is a toxic place to work and after 2 employees killed themselves in Canada, a review was conducted in 2019 and another in 2021. In 2019, the company is reported to have a “toxic” culture with “prevalent bullying, public humiliation, sexism and other abuses of power”. In 2021, a second review found “a culture of white privilege with incidences of overt racism”. www.charityintelligence.ca/charity-details/170-amnesty-international-canadian-section.

Guardian articles on the reviews:
www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/06/amnesty-international-has-toxic-working-culture-report-finds

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/20/amnesty-international-has-culture-of-white-privilege-report-finds

In any case, AI will see themselves naturally as a LGBT ally due to abuse in other countries. The 3rd pic attached is from the page on LGBT and describes a gay man in Belarus, who was arrested and physically assaulted by police shortly whilst trying to set up an LGBT organisation.

@ducksalive

love is a human right Is a bloody dangerous slogan, 20 years working with children who have been sexually abused and the perpetrators of that abuse have taught me that. I thought Amnesty were meant to experts in their field?

It sounds like the sort of thing that PIE would have come up with.

In countries where self-identification is already the process (Argentina, Ireland) the policy has had absolutely no impact on anyone other than trans people, making their lives easier.
Barbie Kardashian is precisely the sort of person we don't want to make things easier for.

@CompleteGinasaur

That would seem to be the... I don't want to use logical, because I think we left actual logic behind a hell of a long time ago.. shall we say inevitable? end of this line of thought..

Amazing how this sort of altruism, almost sainthood is only demanded of women and never of men.

Would any woman want the right to fuck a man who didn’t want to fuck her? That sounds grotesque to me. But obviously plenty men out there are into it.

So, they DID support a protest at a feminist conference. The bastards.

The organiser of the Fly the Flag event stated that their protest would be respectful and celebratory and that she would seek dialogue with delegates to the conference. We were happy to support the Fly the Flag event in this way.

They knew it was a feminist conference.
They knew it was a protest.

That's blatant misogyny. You have chosen to believe that feminism deserves to be 'protested'. Fuck you, Amnesty.

@NCBlossom

I have been a committed supporter and member of Amnesty for many, many years.

I am a great believer in basic human rights worldwide. I am devastated that Amnesty have completely lost their compass and thrown so much energy into a lobby for preferences.

Rather than protecting those who are tortured, imprisoned, beaten and killed for just voicing their beliefs.

So much wrong with this

• you don’t ‘send placards’ - a name such as Amnesty is either completely part of a demonstration or not. There is no fudging middle where you can hide behind. They knowingly gave their name and support to people who called for violence, sexual violence against women whilst ironically FiLiA were supporting women from sexual violence.
• Amnesty should have been supporting FiLiA to speak out without fear or violent threats
• Amnesty has no place in a philosophical debate on trans preference. No trans person is being tortured or imprisoned by being denied using a woman’s changing room.

This ^^

If white supremacy groups request placards will they send them? Or replace that with a thousand other extreme groups we can’t name here.

They are responsible for who they send AI placards to & who that will negatively impact.

They just don’t care because, like many, they consider women lesser beings so they are happy to throw us under the bus.

[quote NCBlossom]@foxgoosefinch 100% agree with you. I feel like I’ve just lifted the lid on a casket of monsters, Amnesty being one of them.

I cancelled my membership, specifically because of the sexually violent threats. I did not mention trans issues at all. Yet I received an exact same email with the ‘lecture’ on trans rights, even though I had not even mentioned trans issues as a reason. I think their reply is horrific if I’m honest. There is zero justification of sexual threats to women who were bravely talking about their sexual abuse - and Amnesty should be absolutely ashamed and reviewing their whole stance on this.

However they are obviously not. So I quickly googled what Amnesty’s stance was, and how much energy was going into their backing of trans preferences to be able to go into all women’s spaces. It’s a real eye opener. They are all over it, they have commissioned weird research into sex at birth, they are full of anti safeguarding rhetoric, they have so lost their way that I do not think they will ever find it again. Such a waste. I”m sorry but someone being tortured just for being gay or opposing a regime is what we should care about, and they obviously don’t anymore.[/quote]
There’s zero justification of threats of sexual violence against any women ever.

I’m firmly pro choice but if other women are pro life they still don’t deserve threats of rape, especially with backing from a powerful well known charity.

Women have a right to say anything they want about women’s rights and women’s issues, even if other women don’t agree with what they say.

We need a Nolan style investigation. Any watching journalists - this one is wide open for you.

It sounds as though Amnesty think the slogans can be used in any demonstration for LGBT rights.

The fact that they hadn’t thought through what those slogans mean in a wider context, particularly given recent events and specific concerns about the police, tells you everything you need to know about Amnesty in its current form.

The steps in the picture on the right are just to the left of the first image. The chalked obscenities we're in frying of the steps I. The space between then other graffiti extended across the square as the day went on.

@DdraigGoch
My thoughts on that slogan were exactly the same. It sounded like it was borrowed from PIE.

I can understand "love is a human right" sounding like an OK slogan to a naïve intern or person on the street. It sounds like it carries on from slogans like "love is love" and "love is all that matters" from equal marriage campaigns (and earlier, campaigns to legalise interracial and interfaith marriages, where those were restricted). People aren't necessarily going to think through the implications or connect it to the "right to sex" campaigns.

But "I am who I say I am"? That is incredibly sinister; I can't believe any adult can't see it. If a random person shows up at daycare or a primary school and says "I'm Alex's mum's friend; she's had an emergency at work and asked me to pick up and look after Alex while she sorts it out", is the teacher supposed to take this at face value? Is Alex? Is the UK suddenly safe enough to throw away everything we've learned over the last decades about safeguarding? If so, Amnesty, I'd love to see some evidence; it'd be good news for once!

And, if "I am who I say I am" then are misogynist Anti Woman Activists participating in all these protests against women gathering and speaking FINALLY going to stop shouting over me with nonsense about my being a secret far right evangelist Christian American or a radical feminist separatist or whatever? Or is this a case of "I am who I say I am, you are what I say you are"? That could be potentially edging on a little bit of potentially illegal discrimination there, Amnesty.

No apology, in a pageful of excuses.

No hint of explanation as to why is Amnesty involved in an anti-women protest.

And Amnesty has the nerve to claim it opposes VAWG! What a sick joke.

I can't believe any adult can't see it.

I certainly can’t understand how the ‘I am who I say I am’ signs were supposed to open up dialogue at a conference discussing VAWG in October 2021.