Amnesty’s now a lost cause

AFTER what must be at least 30 years, I’m finally going to stop being a member of Amnesty. I joined because I thought it was a good deed in a wicked world, working to free prisoners of conscience from the dungeons of Rightwing and Left-wing despots.

Prompted by Amnesty, I wrote polite letters to such despots, urging the release of people I often disagreed with, because I thought then and think now that nobody should be imprisoned for expressing an opinion.

I must admit it has been a while since I did that (or was asked to do so), but the end of the Cold War did not end the need for such a campaign. China, Asia and the Muslim world still have plenty of political prisoners. But Amnesty seems to have developed other ideas.

A few years ago, it began to campaign on behalf of convicts on death row in the USA.

It’s a perfectly reasonable cause – though I don’t happen to agree with it, being a convinced supporter of the death penalty in free countries. But it has absolutely nothing to do with prisoners of conscience. The USA, for all its faults, does not execute people for holding opinions.

What’s more, it’s politically partisan. Left-wing people tend to oppose capital punishment, Conservative people such as me tend to support it. The whole point of Amnesty was that it was a place where we could forget our divisions in the cause of liberty.

I protested, uselessly, and carried on paying my dues. But now Amnesty has decided to support decriminalisation (they mean legalisation) of prostitution. Once again, it’s a political, partisan position. Even if I agreed with it (which I don’t) I really cannot see what it has to do with prisoners of conscience. I suspect it will make it harder for Amnesty to campaign for such people, its real concern.

Like so many other once-noble charities, Amnesty has lost its way. I’m sure it’s not remotely interested in what I think of its behaviour and I’m sure it won’t make any difference. But that’s enough. I’m very sorry, but I’m off.