Beira's Place, the Edinburgh-based sexual violence support centre founded by JK Rowling in 2022, has welcomed an apology from Amnesty International but said it does nothing to repair the "reputational damage" caused by a controversial briefing.
The charity was among organisations branded "anti-rights" and described as "gender critical" in an Amnesty briefing titled A growing threat: the anti-rights movement in the UK. Amnesty has since apologised, confirming the briefing has been removed and does not represent its official stance.
Charity's statement
Rowling shared the charity's statement on X on Friday evening. The statement also referenced a separate Amnesty briefing titled "Like A Snowball". It acknowledged Amnesty's apology and the undertaking to commission an independent external review into how the two reports could have been published and promoted in Amnesty's name.
"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's apology
Amnesty International had previously acknowledged that the document should never have been made public and has since launched an internal investigation into the matter. In a statement, 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."
