Amnesty International forced to apologise for branding Christians 'anti-rights'

Amnesty International UK has issued a public apology after a briefing document branded Premier and scores of Christian charities, gender-critical campaigners, and pro-life organisations as "anti-rights."

The human rights body accepted full responsibility, stating that the report — titled 'A growing threat: the anti-rights movement in the UK' — ought never to have been released.

The document alleged that dozens of groups were undermining the rights of women and LGBT+ individuals, and recommended that their charitable status be reconsidered.

Amnesty confirmed it has launched an internal investigation into how the briefing was produced and published.

The organisation also pledged to commission an independent external review to examine what went wrong.

The apology followed widespread criticism after the report was initially circulated in July.

Among the Christian bodies explicitly identified in the briefing were the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales, the Evangelical Alliance UK, the Christian Medical Fellowship, and CARE.

Beira's Place, a service established to support women who have experienced sexual violence, was also singled out in the document.

The report grouped it alongside other organisations it classified as gender-critical.

The briefing accused these groups of targeting the rights of women and LGBT+ people, and urged that their status as registered charities be subjected to formal review.

A separate, earlier publication by Amnesty — titled 'Like A Snowball' — similarly referenced a broad range of organisations.

That document has now also been removed from circulation, the organisation confirmed.

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In its statement, Amnesty said: "The briefing was taken down within 48 hours of publication, as soon as management were notified of its existence, was not actively promoted, and will not be republished."

The organisation stressed that the "anti-rights" label applied to the named groups "does not represent our institutional position."

It offered a specific apology to Beira's Place and other bodies categorised as gender-critical, acknowledging they ought not to have been collectively described in such terms.

Amnesty said: "AIUK holds itself to the highest standards of research, evidence and editorial oversight in all its publications.

"We have concluded that this briefing fell significantly short of those standards."

The organisation reaffirmed its commitment to defending the human rights, dignity, and equality of all marginalised groups, including women, girls, and members of the trans community.

Premier's chief executive Kevin Bennett questioned the circumstances surrounding the report's creation, saying: "Amnesty has real questions to answer about how this report came to be created and published in the first place, and what it reveals about their true position on these matters."

He added that withdrawing the document was merely a first step and called on the organisation to explicitly confirm it does not regard the listed groups as "anti-rights."

Mr Bennett noted the irony that Amnesty, originally founded to defend freedom of conscience and belief, had instead levelled accusations against organisations "seeking to thoughtfully contribute to the national debate on what are complex and contentious issues."

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