Amnesty and platform sharing

Amnesty International is suffering some bad publicity because one of its staff has been suspended. She appears to be claiming that the organisation (don’t forget, Amnesty is not a charity) is linked too closely to a group called Cageprisoners, one of whose principal spokespeople is Moazzam Begg.  I don’t know if this is the case, but the controversy does illustrate the pitfalls for voluntary organisations when they allow themselves to be too closely identified with another organisation or individual.

I used to work at Amnesty British Section, and at that time there was an absolute rule that it did not “share a platform” with other organisations. This used to cause all sorts of challenges as I was responsible for working with politicians and celebrities, and we had to make it clear in public that these individuals were supporting Amnesty but the organisation was not supporting them.

Today, the Howard League is going to approach celebrities to support our work and the same sort of issues have arisen. If we ask a well known actor or television personality to front a campaign for us, what happens if they are arrested for a nasty offence, or are caught in delicto flagrante? I am quite relaxed about this because we work all the time with people who may have failings – some quite challenging – but it does not mean that we ignore what they have done or implicitly condone it. We simply recognise the “crooked timber of humanity”, as Kant would say.

Some years ago we invited a well known peer to come and speak to a conference about education in prisons and it caused quite a furore. But, we have always invited former prisoners, prison governors and others closely involved with the penal system to speak at our events. This does not mean we condone their actions but their experience can shine a light on a closed institution and we should listen to people who have something useful to contribute. Being hard headed about it, a high profile former prisoner gets a bigger audience, more media coverage and a more intense public debate. 

We could, of course, only invite “perfect victims” to speak and if we could find the perfect politician we could invite him or her. Our job is to stimulate discussion, test ideas and press for improvements. One way of doing this is to work with a very wide range of people and organisations.

Having said that, I am still cautious about the sharing of platform issue. The Howard League is rightly cautious about working with other organisations and when, after careful consideration, we join coalitions we are transparent about the decision and the list is on our website. When we work with other groups, coalitions or individuals it means that we share many aims, but it does not mean that we support everything they do. We review these alliances and if it happens that our objectives diverge irreconcilably then the Howard League will leave.

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February 11, 2010  Tags: , ,   Posted in: Uncategorized

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  1. Liberal Conspiracy » Amnesty and impartiality - February 11, 2010

    [...] Frances Cook notes, Amnesty used to operate a very strict ‘joint-platform’ policy in which it was reluctant ever [...]

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