Beira's Place, founded in Edinburgh in 2022 by JK Rowling to offer women-only support to survivors of sexual violence, was among the organisations branded "anti-rights" and described as "gender critical" in a briefing published by the human rights charity.
Apology and removal
Amnesty International has apologised for publishing the briefing, titled "A growing threat: the anti-rights movement in the UK", confirming it has been removed and does not represent Amnesty's official stance. The London-based organisation issued a specific apology to Beira's Place, stating it should never have been labelled as "anti-rights".
The Harry Potter author shared the charity's statement on X on Friday evening. The statement also referenced a separate Amnesty briefing titled "Like A Snowball".
Charity statement
The Edinburgh-based charity's statement read: "Beira's Place acknowledges the apology published by Amnesty International together with the undertaking to commission an independent external review into how two reports containing such false and harmful allegations could be published and promoted in its name. The permanent removal of both reports is a tacit acceptance that they contained allegations which were false and defamatory of a large number of organisations which it classed as 'gender critical'. While the apology is welcomed it does not rectify the reputational damage caused to Beira's Place. In particular the apology fails to recognise that those most severely impacted are the staff who work day in day out to support survivors of sexual violence and the many women who need and use the service."
Amnesty responds
Amnesty International had previously acknowledged that the document should never have been made public, and has since launched an internal investigation into the matter.
Amnesty said: "Whilst we do not share the views of all these organisations, we recognise the concerns raised by those labelled as 'anti-rights' in the document. To be clear: this labelling does not represent our institutional position, and we apologise for its inclusion. In particular, we apologise to Beira's Place and other groups, which we categorised as gender critical organisations, which we should not have collectively labelled as anti-rights. We have also taken down an earlier more discursive briefing (entitled Like A Snowball) which also referenced a wide range of organisations."
