Amnesty International

I used to be a very proud member of Amnesty International some years ago. Like Red Cross, whom I used to work for, I saw it as a devoted humanitarian organisation which helped those detained and tortured around the world without regard for the politics of the government involved.

I attended a couple of meetings of the parliamentary section when I worked there, and it was good to see MPs there from ACT to the Greens.

But in more recent times it seems Amnesty has departed from being politically neutral and as Michael Ellis blogs it has become a socialist organisation that now has a view on income equality and distribution etc.

This is a real pity because it means that they send a message out to people like me that they don’t want our support or membership, even though I admire the work they do opposing tyrants and torture.

They risk becoming a society for the left only, and in doing so lose their strongest virtue of impartiality.