Check out the findings of a 2021 inquiry into Amnesty International UK: "Racist, white privilege, colonialist....".
This for an organization that has not ceased to suggest that the Lebanese people are "racist" because they can no longer bear the burden of 2 million Syrian refugees in a country of 4 million people. While the English SOBs are selling their human migrants and refugees to Rwanda, they have the gall to demand that Lebanon "absorb" and settle 2 million Syrians, half of whom are not even refugees, but are illegal thugs and criminals who cross the Syrian-Lebanese border and smuggle all kinds of goods. How can you be a refugee if you can commute daily between your host country and your home country?
The pricks of Amnesty International are salon human-rights-defenders, bourgeois leftwingers, bigoted Anglican atheists, ... who have never experienced hardship, yet who claim to be holier than thou in matters of the human condition, just like pedophile Catholic priests who counsel couples on marriage issues. High-brow British snobs whose own society is steeped in racism, class discrimnation, forced integration of other peoples (Welsh, Scots, Irish) into a so-called union, colonial oppression of nations which they leave divided and mutilated (India, Palestine...). Oh yeah, and that idiot Charles is being crowned as "King by Divine Right". Of course! By none else than the Big Zombie in the Sky himself.
Just like that asshole Robert Fisk, of the cretin concentration camp and toilet paper called The Independent, who spent a lifetime as a modern-day "orientalist" in a Lebanon under the Assad regime's vulgar occupation, kicking the agonizing country and calling it artificial and torn out by the French from a fallacious Syrian entity. Imagine the depth of hypocrisy of the English who plundered the earth for several centuries and who still find fault with French colonialism.
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Amnesty International UK is “institutionally racist”, “colonialist” and faces bullying problems within its own ranks, a damning inquiry has concluded.Initial findings of Global HPO’s independent inquiry into the charity were published in April [2021] but now the scale of the organisation’s issues with race have been laid bare in their final report.
Released to Amnesty staff members on Thursday, the 106-page document explains that equality, inclusion and anti-racism are “not embedded into the DNA” of the organisation.
“White saviour”, “colonialist”, “middle class” and “privileged” were among the words most used during the testimony and focus groups to discuss Amnesty.
Diversity was also found to be a major problem within the charity itself, with white applicants more likely to be appointed to roles within the charity than all other groups – and black people least likely to be given a job.
Examples of racist incidents that left black and Asian staff uncomfortable include:
- Being regularly mistaken for other colleagues with similar skin tone
- Negative comments about fasting during Ramadan
- Treating black skin, hair and appearance as matters of fascination and touching hair without consent
- Rude comments about minority celebrities, politicians or events
“Our view is that ‘white saviour, middle class and privileged’ is a perception that forms an important part of the AIUK narrative about its history and legacy,” the inquiry found.
“A perception that has not been addressed and as such manifests in the negative cultural paradigm of exclusion and racism at AIUK. There is a need for the impact of this legacy to be acknowledged and addressed as part of the transition to becoming anti-racist.”
Recommendations for improvement include refraining from collating diversity data into one homogeneous black, Asian and minority ethnic (Bame) group and providing training to improve equality monitoring.
“Dysfunctional internal activism” – in which staff view anti-racism and fair treatment as “unwinnable” endeavours – also needs to be addressed, the report adds.
Particular attention should paid to the employment and retention of black African and black Caribbean staff at AIUK , the inquiry ruled, as these groups fare the worst within the charity.
Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International UK’s chief executive, said: “It is critical in the change that we need to make at Amnesty UK that we acknowledge that this report makes abundantly clear the scale of the transformation we must make to change lots about Amnesty UK as a place to work.
“GHPO have helped us to identify where we must make changes and we will not shy away from this work, especially as it is clear it is long overdue.
“I am glad that the inquiry team have recognised that some improvements have started here in the last year, but that doesn’t in any way diminish the seriousness of the findings nor should it make us at all complacent about the task ahead of us.
“But I do believe that with a transformation we can make Amnesty UK an example of a cause-driven organisation with an excellent working environment and culture for all colleagues.
“That should be our goal, and it is our duty not just to our colleagues but to our hundreds of thousands of supporters that we deliver it.”
The independent inquiry conducted by Global HPO was commissioned by a joint group drawn from different parts of Amnesty UK, including the Section Board, Amnesty activists, the staff trade union shop, management and former staff, in October 2021.
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Amnesty International has culture of white privilege, report finds
This article is from 2021
Amnesty International has a culture of white privilege with incidents of overt racism including senior staff using the N-word and micro-aggressive behaviour such as the touching of black colleagues’ hair, according to an internal review into its secretariat.
It came as eight current and former employees of Amnesty International UK (AIUK) described their own experiences of racial discrimination and issued a statement calling on senior figures to stand down.
One of the whistleblowers, Katherine Odukoya, said: “We joined Amnesty hoping to campaign against human rights abuses but were instead let down through realising that the organisation actually helped perpetuate them.”
Representatives of both arms of the UK-based human rights organisation apologised and pledged to make changes, with the director of AIUK citing “the uncomfortable fact that we have not been good enough”.
The internal review at Amnesty’s international secretariat, commissioned following the Black Lives Matter movement, recorded multiple examples of workers reporting alleged racism including:
Senior staff using the N-word and P-word, with colleagues labelled over-sensitive if they complained.
Systemic bias including the capability of black staff being questioned consistently and without justification, and minority ethnic staff feeling disempowered and sidelined on projects.
A lack of awareness or sensitivity to religious practices resulting in problematic comments and behaviour.
Aggressive and dismissive behaviour, particularly over email and often directed towards staff in offices in the global south.
In June last year the international board of Amnesty International sent an email to staff addressing the Black Lives Matter movement and racism. Citing the killing of George Floyd, it said racism was encoded into the “very organisational model” of the human rights body, which had been shaped by the “colonial power dynamics and borders” that were “fresh” at the time of its founding in 1961.
It continued: “Despite some notable and hard-won changes in recent years, control and influence over our resources, decision-making … has remained overwhelmingly in the hands of … people from the white majority Global North.”
It said there had been bias and insensitivity in the way some people were treated at the international secretariat – the arm of the organisation which sets policy and hires researchers from hubs across the world, with headquarters in London.
The board went on to inform staff that an independent review would take place. Over the next few months, workplace experts from the consultancy Howlett Brown conducted a “temperature check”. They were given access to staff surveys and carried out six focus groups made up of 51 staff including two exclusively attended by black staff.
Published in October 2020 but not press released, the 46-page internal report by Howlett Brown, focused on Amnesty’s international secretariat, summarised: “Remarks (in the focus groups) were consistently shared that the external face of Amnesty (International Secretariat) is very different to its internal face.” The experts recommended that to resolve issues there would need to be a recognition of the “systemic privileges that exist”.
A statement released alongside the report by the Amnesty International coalition leadership team said it was “sobered” by the findings, adding: “It is a timely reminder that discrimination, racism and anti-Black racism exist in our organisation. It has highlighted both the extent and systematic nature of racism and indicates we must address white privilege wherever it exists.”
Separately, staff at AIUK, which is also based in London but has a separate employment structure from the international secretariat, made claims of racial discrimination, telling the Guardian there were similarities between their experiences and the culture at the international secretariat.
They described feeling “dehumanised” over their race and ethnicity over a number of years, with some reporting official grievances.
In a joint statement, two current and six former employees of AIUK called for the director, senior management team and board to resign, claiming the leadership “knowingly upheld racism and actively harmed staff from ethnic minority backgrounds”.
Odukoya, who worked within the campaigns and community organising teams at AIUK, said that as a black woman she was constantly mentally exhausted navigating an environment that was “hostile to blackness”. “There’s a hegemonic white middle-class culture that seemed to be protected and reproduced. White privilege was pervasive,” she said.
Odukoya described colleagues at AIUK commenting on her hair and requesting to touch it, making negative references to her “urban” accent and referring to her as the “black girl”.
In 2019 she raised a grievance concerning racial and gender discrimination, alleging that she had been manipulated into working above her pay grade without the correct remuneration. AIUK did not uphold the claim but reached a settlement with Odukoya in May last year.
Aldred, 31, claimed that minority ethnic staff were overlooked for promotions, with pay reviews consistently favouring high-earning white senior leaders. He said the leadership had exonerated themselves of wrongdoing.
“Working for AIUK destroyed my self-confidence, my belief in my capabilities. I didn’t think I was skilled enough to do my job, that any organisation would ever hire me, let alone promote me, and I suffered from ongoing depression and anxiety,” said Aldred.
Kate Allen, the director of AIUK, apologised, saying these were serious and challenging concerns and, although she could not discuss individual cases, the allegations of discrimination would be taken seriously and investigated. “We know that institutional racism exists in the UK and, like any other organisation, we aren’t immune to this very real problem,” she said.
“We recognise that we have not done enough to ensure that our organisation is a truly inclusive one where everyone receives the same level of respect and opportunity, is valued equally and is able to be heard. We are reckoning with the uncomfortable fact that we have not been good enough and from this, we understand that we must change to become better.”
In response to the Howlett Brown report, Allen said the international secretariat had also taken significant measures to act on its findings. While the report did not look at AIUK, Allen recognised that it must also adapt, and had undertaken a review of its structure and governance in relation to racism.
Amnesty International said it wholeheartedly apologised to any staff who experienced discrimination. It said the accounts detailed in the Howlett Brown report were “unacceptable” and it acknowledged that across many levels there was not full equality. It said that allegations of racist language had been dealt with in line with its human resources policies and following the report it had committed to actively tackling the root causes of the issues identified.
In February 2019, it was revealed that Amnesty International had a “toxic” working environment. A review into workplace culture, commissioned after two staff members killed themselves in 2018, found widespread bullying.
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