Amnesty International: Failed Methods, Corrupt and Selective

So who was the lead organisation funding the Bali Nine ‘Mercy Campaign’?

Despite Amnesty’s influence, critical analysis of the organization and its activities has been limited.  The “halo effect,” which shields groups claiming to promote universal moral agendas and human rights from scrutiny because of a perceived impartiality, has insulated Amnesty from systematic critical assessment and reform, to its own detriment.

In 2014, Amnesty finds itself in the midst of unprecedented crisis. In late 2012, working conditions led to strikes in its London office and UK section. Internal reports acknowledged that in some regions, particularly in the US, the organization has lost influence along with a significant number of members. As NGO Monitor’s research has shown, the crisis is rooted in a number of structural problems, including consistent post-colonial ideological bias, a pronounced lack of credibility in research reports, moral inconsistency, financial instability and corruption, failure to act with transparency in critical organizational aspects, and friction between the London office and key national sections (particularly the U.S.).

The purpose of the detailed research is to contribute to a much needed independent assessment of Amnesty’s structure and activities. We present a brief overview of Amnesty’s founding, evolution, and current structure. On this foundation, we examine financial issues, including decreased funding (in part due to a significant drop in membership) and the myth of Amnesty’s rejection of government funds.

Additional sections deal with ideological and political biases and with the lack of professional methodology and credibility in Amnesty’s publications, which have further limited the effectiveness of the organization. In particular, these failures are illustrated in Amnesty’s relationship with Israel and its treatment of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

In the course of our research, NGO Monitor has found:

• Financial mismanagement among Amnesty’s corporate officers, most notably in the redundancy packages of former Secretary General Irene Khan and her deputy Kate Gilmore.
• A professional staff who believe that Amnesty is undermining human rights through its own policies and practices.  In the words of Gita Sahgal, former head of the Gender Unit, Amnesty’s relationship with a pro-Taliban group “fundamentally damages Amnesty International’s integrity and, more importantly, constitutes a threat to human rights.”¹
• Repeated examples of “lawfare,” the tendentious misapplications of legal terms and statutes to create the false impression of guilt.
• Likewise, systematic flaws in the reporting of human rights abuses, including the repetition of false libels and comparison of Israel to terror groups such as Hamas.
• An inadequate understanding of armed conflict leading to erroneous claims and incorrect analysis.
• Violation of the universality of human rights, including a consistent institutionalized bias against Israel through double standards.
• The employment of individuals in key research and leadership positions whose backgrounds, skills, and activities demonstrate the absence of professional human rights experience, exacerbated by deep ideological and political bias. This trend is incompatible with the requirements for credible and and universal human rights reporting and analysis.“

It has often been said that Amnesty International’s agenda tends to fit nicely with the political needs of the United States and Great Britain. Around the world, supporters of the Nicaraguan people’s struggle for self-determination were outraged by the timing of a 1986 Amnesty report critical of the Sandinista government, which helped Reagan push another Contra Aid appropriation through a reluctant congress, at exactly the moment when the anti-Contra movement was beginning to get serious political traction. With regard to South Africa’s apartheid regime, AI was critical of the human rights record of the South African government. However, as you will see below, AI never condemned apartheid per se. By the time Amnesty endorsed the Hill & Knowlton nursery tale concerning Kuwaiti infants pulled from incubators by Iraqi soldiers, many otherwise sympathetic observers of Amnesty’s work became increasingly alarmed. [This was the manufactured (false) incident used to start the first Gulf War — JW]

More than a decade of grassroots organization within Amnesty’s membership base finally succeeded just two years ago in moving the organization to take a position critical of the genocidal sanctions against the people of Iraq, sanctions which have killed approximately a million and a half Iraqis, one third of them children. According to Dr. Boyle, this delay was political, and it clearly served the interests of the U.S. and Britain, the two governments on the Security Council preventing the lifting of the sanctions. A recent search of the internet shows that AI Venezuela very quickly took up the U.S. line by charging President Chavez with crimes against humanity for the bloodshed during the recent failed coup attempt against his administration. Amnesty’s performance on the April 2002 massacre at Jenin is another blot on its frequently laudable record. As our readers are aware, the United Nations attempted to investigate the Jenin massacre, but was prevented from doing so by Sharon and Bush. The announcement on May 3, 2002 by Human Rights Watch of “no massacre at Jenin” effectively killed the story, although there was a lot of argument about what constitutes a massacre. No such arguments were heard when a suicide bomber turned a Passover dinner into a tragedy. This magazine will cover the topic of Human Rights Watch in a future issue. For this issue, we were fortunate to be forwarded the transcript of a June 13th [2002] interview with Dr. Francis A. Boyle, professor of International Law and former board member of Amnesty International. What follows is a shortened version of the transcript.”

Read More

http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article/amnesty_international_failed_methodology_corruption_and_anti_israel_bias

https://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/176/31407.html

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/02/senior-amnesty-international-official-accuses-it-of-putting-rights-of-jihadis-before-those-of-their.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Amnesty_International