Amnesty removes report that branded JK Rowling’s sexual abuse centre ‘anti-rights’
JK Rowling. (Getty)
Amnesty International UK has removed a report which labelled JK Rowling‘s sexual abuse crisis centre Beira’s Place as “anti-rights”, saying it is going through an “internal review”.
Last week, the human rights charity released a report titled A Growing Threat: The Anti-Rights Movement in the UK, which listed a number of organisations it claimed harmed women’s and LGBTQ+ rights in the country.
“Women-only” Beira’s Place, founded by the Harry Potter author in 2022, was set up to “provide practical and emotional help to women in a safe and supportive environment”. It operates “in accordance with the Equality Act 2010”, which ruled the legal definition of sex was biological sex only.
In Amnesty International UK’s now-removed list, it looked at what it called “anti-rights actors”, which it said were “formal or informal groups, individuals, private and state actors whose aim is to restrict human rights by undermining human rights protections in law and practice”.
Among those which Amnesty International UK identified as “anti-rights” organisations was Beira’s Place, claiming the organisation was “gender critical”.
Other groups the charity included in the list were LGB Alliance, For Women Scotland and Sex Matters.
However the list was removed from the charity’s website after it attracted criticism from people including tennis star Martina Navratilova and Monty Python’s John Cleese, who said on X: “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 shared a screenshot of a page from the Amnesty International UK website which had previously hosted the report. Rowling’s post read: “Translation: oops, didn’t realise people outside our ideological bubble are this p***** off about the loss of sex-based rights. We remain implacably opposed to any organisation fighting to retain them, but shove in the words ‘rights of women’ to keep the bigots happy.”
She also said: “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.”
A spokesperson for Amnesty International UK told PinkNews: “We have temporarily removed this briefing while it undergoes an internal review. Amnesty International UK remains committed to researching and campaigning on human rights issues, incorporating our long standing and explicit commitment to gender justice, including the rights of women, LGBTQI and trans people.”
