The human rights group Amnesty International used to be a solid, reliable and impartial group. It used to support all prisoners of conscience no matter what their political path or viewpoint with one proviso, that the particular prisoner of conscience and their cause was non-violent. Because of its uncompromising moral stance of supporting all those non-violent individuals gaoled or targeted by their governments for oppression, Amnesty managed to garner for itself a great and noble reputation. It became, because it made no judgements on the validity of the causes, which could be Left, Right or Centrist, of the prisoners of conscience, a go to entity when it came to matters pertaining to human rights.
But sadly, over the decades, Amnesty has changed beyond recognition. It now no longer supports all non-violent prisoners of conscience or all those targeted for oppression by their governments. Amnesty now has an ‘agenda’ and this agenda means that it is now worryingly selective in what causes it takes up. It now refuses to take up certain free speech cases and instead concentrates on Left/Green causes and abandons those who do not fit into this category.
Because of this shift, many of us who would formerly have supported Amnesty find that we can no longer do so. This shift in policy by Amnesty has also gravely damaged the organisation’s reputation as we can see that it picks and chooses what prisoners of conscience it supports and which it abandons. These decisions by Amnesty do not seem to be made on the grounds of whether or not the particular prisoner of conscience is or is not violent, but purely on the grounds of the political view of the prisoner of conscience in question.
This shift in policy has been noticed and over on Twitter recently (h/t Old Holborn) Amnesty International is getting a massive and well justified roasting from users over Amnesty’s hypocrisy. In particular they are getting roasted over their treatment of the internet comedian and commentator Count Dankula. But first some backstory.
A few years back Dankula made a short video where he tried to wind up his then girlfriend (now wife) by taking her pug dog which he said was the cutest thing ever and training it to do the most disgusting thing he could think of. Dankula, who is a man with a left of centre / libertarian political background and who has never been associated at all with neo-Nazism, decided that the most disgusting and abhorrent thing he could teach the dog to do would be to raise its paw when Dank said the words ‘gas the Jews’. Now this joke was not to many people’s taste but at the end of the day that’s what it was, a joke. Dankula isn’t really a Nazi, far from it, it was just a joke at the expense of his girlfriend and her dog. However, to cut a long story short, this video unintentionally went viral and Police Scotland got involved. Police Scotland actively trawled around various Jewish community groups and individuals in order to find someone who would be offended by it. In effect officers from Police Scotland went out in search of offended people in order that they could bring a case against Dankula. The case dragged on for several years and eventually Dank was found guilty and fined £800 which he refused to pay but it was taken by the Scottish government from his wages.
As a result of his arrest Count Dankula quite rightly decided that he needed support to fight his case and as it was a case relating to freedom of speech he approached Amnesty International. After all wouldn’t you if you were being faced with a potential prison sentence for nothing more than a joke? The response that Count Dankula says that he got from Amnesty shocked him as he believed that Amnesty was impartial. Count Dankula said that Amnesty told him to ‘fuck off’.
Fast forward to today and Amnesty is, quite rightly, making a big noise about the situation in Spain where there is a bit of a free speech crisis and artists, musicians and internet creators and commentators are being targeted for oppression by the Spanish government and legal system. However people have not forgotten the appalling way that Amnesty International treated Dankula and refused to treat him as the prisoner of conscience that he was. Whilst I agree with Amnesty that the situation regarding freedom of speech is bad, it is extremely hypocritical of Amnesty to scream loudly about the the Spanish cases whilst ignoring other cases that don’t fit with Amnesty’s now increasing left wing narrative.
Below is the original Tweet from Amnesty:
As you can see from the responses below. I am not the only person who has noticed and is disgusted by Amnesty International’s hypocrisy. Count Dankula himself (in first Tweet grab) and a multitude of others noticed it as well.
If you go to the Amnesty thread that’s linked above you will see many more similar responses.
Supporting freedom of speech means just that. It means supporting freedom of speech for all, not just those with whom you agree or those who follow the same political path as yourself. It sometimes means standing up for the right to speak for those who are wrong or from different political paths or who are quite frankly just lunatics. Even the revolting should have a voice for only by allowing the revolting to speak can the decent people challenge them. For example I despise the anti vaccination cult and Holocaust Deniers, but I don’t believe that they should be banned from speaking. On the contrary I believe that they should be allowed to speak but they and their views should be challenged. This is because it is only by challenging those with wrong or out there views with facts or an alternative opinion that they can either have their minds changed or have those who may be tempted to follow them diverted away from them by being shown an alternative view. There are very few situations where censorship of views should be permitted and they should only be where someone is inciting direct and credible violence, every other type of speech, including speech that is inconvenient for governments or viewpoints that are offensive, should be allowed.
It is also worth remembering that just because someone’s views are unpopular doesn’t necessarily mean that they are wrong.
I am old enough to remember The Secret Policemans Ball being run as a fundraiser for them; seems to me they have become the Secret Policeman they railed against!
The story gets worse. I found out after the article was published that AI had signed a letter, along with other woke left wing groups in the Republic of Ireland, condemning women who are gender critical or who state the biological fact that there are only two genders.
Amnesty International. Another good organisation ruined by the left. They foul up everything they touch.
A General Election is due this May. If it does go ahead, I strongly urge people to vote for For Britain. If elected, they will stop the UK turning into an Islamic State, halt illegal immigration and bring back freedom of speech. You can read their manifesto at https://www.forbritain.uk/
It’s not a general it’s local, regional and devolved administration elections. A quick tip if I may. Mistaking the May elections for a general election is the sort of thing that is picked up by and exploited by the Left and will be used against your party by them. Supporters of sensible alt parties are welcome here, but must expect debate not unqualified support.
However I will not be voting for FB. I’ve read the manifesto and whilst I welcome new parties as challengers to the Big Two and support the return of freedom of speech, migration control and political honesty about Islam, there are some aspects of the FB manifesto that are frankly unworkable and which would be unpopular. One such policy is FB’s aim of raising the age of consent to 18. On that issue I’m really concerned and distinctly uneasy about criminalising sensible consenting 16 and 17 year olds who are in non-exploitative relationships. It would be very difficult to police, unlike say a ban on gender reassignment counselling and treatment until 21 as there are already gatekeeping arrangements in healthcare to do this and this policy would involve a significant degree of state intrusion into families and relationships. I’m all for young people delaying sexual activity for as long as possible, but this must be done by the encouragement of families and culture, including schools, not diktat. I think that more should be done to protect young people from exploitative relationships but I doubt that raising the AOC to 18 will do that. It might be far better to equip young people with the knowledge of how to recognise bad and exploitative relationships. Maybe if I’d been taught such things I wouldn’t have had a abusing fraggle for an ex LOL.
I’m also concerned about FB’s apparent hostility to faith and people with a faith and I believe that FB’s policy of intrusion into the faith schooling system whilst well meaning, will go beyond targeting Madrassas, a policy I could support and end up hurting Church and Jewish schools. Apart from the countering Islam and free speech aspects I see no real benefit for me and mine in voting for FB.
For the record I’m leaning towards voting for the Reclaim Party as they are the ones most aligned to my views on freedom of speech and the return of freedom of speech. Second choice would be the Heritage Party although there are aspects of their policies that I find overly prescriptive, such as their built environment policy with Reform in third place choice as although I respect and admire Mr Farage and agree with much of what he says, I’m not in favour of his party’s policy of an elected House of Lords.
I have very different views on Amnesty International
To me they’ve always been a pro Left, pro Terrorist, pro Marxist organisation. I disliked them as a child in 1960s and still do now. Perhaps because I saw the lying murderous terrorists they supported in NI where I lived
On that issue I’m afraid that I have to disagree somewhat and the case of Nelson Mandela illustrates this. Amnesty suported Mandela when he was merely organising strikes and peaceful protests, but they dropped him when the Rivonia trial happened because Mandela was involved in armed resistance to the SA government. The former Sec Gen of Amnesty at the time Peter Benenson said:
‘We recognize, with great sympathy, that where a Government has shown itself contemptuous of the Rule of Law and impervious to peaceful persuasion, that those to whom it has denied full human rights as set out in the United Nations Declaration, may feel or find themselves forced into a position in which the only road to freedom is violence. Such people, though they cannot qualify for adoption as Prisoners of Conscience within the definition of Amnesty International, can be, and often are, our active concern on humanitarian grounds.’
In other words Amnesty removed Mandela from its Prisoner of Conscience category but monitored his treatment in prison on humanitarian grounds.
I’d be very interested to know which terrorists they were supporting in Ulster at the time? The problem with the Ulster situaiton is that there were people who whilst not directly involved in bombs and shootings, were either fellow travellers of the terrorists or kept themselves at one remove from the actual terrorists for political reasons.
“which terrorists they were supporting in Ulster at the time?”
Only ira type terrorists plus constant opposition to Diplock courts which only existed because ira were intimidating and murdering jurors. Judges then murdered instead inc RC one next door to us.
Several times a week AI would be on BBC NI News ranting about some ira terrorist jailed or shot. A particular favourite was those in a car who crashed through an Army/Police checkpoint or refused to stop (surrender) on street or indoors
No, it wasn’t a war zone. Had a lovely free fun childhood as did all in school (no fences, guards etc) and shops, pubs, leisure etc carried on as normal
RUC and Army targetted the baddies and largely ignored ‘no harm done’ transgressions like speeding and that continued through 1990s until Blair changed everything
PS BBC etc school segregation is a Lie, it is same as rest of UK: there are schools for all and RC Schools created by RC Church, but funded by Gov’t
PS 2 RC ‘No Vote’ also a Lie. All could vote in GE. In council elections only rate-payers could vote (my dad could, mum couldn’t) – seems fair to me
Thanks for the background there. From what you are saying about AI it seems that they may have been only highlighting issues pertaining to one side and not looking at both.