Amnesty International UK has branded the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, multiple Catholic organizations, and J.K. Rowling's women's support center Beira's Place as part of a growing "anti-rights movement" in Britain.
The now-removed report, titled A growing threat: the anti-rights movement in the UK, listed 117 organizations that it claimed were working to "restrict human rights by undermining human rights protections in law and practice." Among those named were the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, the Catholic Herald, the Catholic Medical Association, and Beira's Place, the Edinburgh-based support center for women who have experienced sexual violence, founded by Rowling, who herself has experienced such abuse.
The briefing went further, urging the Charity Commission to review the charitable status of organizations it identified and calling on institutional donors to "reduce the risk of funding organisations whose activities undermine human rights protections." The inclusion of Catholic organizations and Beira's Place prompted immediate backlash, with Amnesty removing the report from its website shortly afterward. The Bishops' Conference of England and Wales rejected Amnesty's characterization, telling the Catholic Herald that the Church works to "uphold the God-given rights of all humanity, without exception."
"This includes the rights of those unjustly imprisoned, of refugees and migrants, of those who have been trafficked, and the right to life of all people from conception to natural death," the statement read. "Furthermore, we uphold the right to freedom of religion, conscience and expression... Our belief in the dignity of every person, from which a proper understanding of human rights comes, animates all our work in the field of social justice in England and Wales."
Rowling, who founded Beira's Place in 2022 as a women-only service for survivors of sexual violence, accused Amnesty of abandoning the principle of universal human rights. "It appears that, as many of us have suspected for years, Amnesty believes certain kinds of humans don't deserve rights: women, girls and those who are proudly same-sex attracted," Rowling said, adding that she hoped donors from those groups were "taking note."
After Amnesty quietly removed the report, Rowling suggested legal concerns may have played a role. "Maybe they've decided to belatedly seek legal advice," she said. "Unless they're even more reckless and arrogant than Stonewall, they must surely have anticipated that the organizations they targeted would do so. "The dispute comes little more than a year after the UK Supreme Court unanimously ruled in the For Women Scotland case that the protected characteristic of sex under the Equality Act refers to biological sex, a judgment that has reshaped guidance on women-only spaces and services across the UK.
Beira's Place was established as a women-only support center that operates within that legal framework.
