Beira’s Place, the women-only sexual violence support centre established in Edinburgh by JK Rowling in 2022, was among the organisations characterised as “anti-rights” and “gender critical” in an Amnesty International briefing.
The document, titled “A growing threat: the anti-rights movement in the UK”, has been taken down by the London-based human rights organisation, which has apologised for its publication. Amnesty said the briefing does not reflect its institutional position and made a particular apology to Beira’s Place, acknowledging the centre should not have been labelled “anti-rights”.
Charity’s response
The Harry Potter author shared Beira’s Place’s response on X on Friday evening. The statement referred to another Amnesty briefing, “Like A Snowball”.
The Edinburgh charity’s statement said: “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 position
Amnesty International had earlier said the briefing should never have been published and that an internal investigation is under way. It added: “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.”
