Amnesty Ireland (AI) has received €412,175 in cash from Irish Aid, the official international development aid programme of the Irish State, since 2011. Amnesty has received money from Irish Aid every year since 2011.
Whilst it’s generally believed that AI, and Amnesty International, are totally independent of state funding, determining AI’s official stance on accepting such money is slightly more complicated than might be expected. In fact, a review of available material shows that Amnesty International and its affiliate groups commonly accept money from governments.
Whilst a casual reading of AI’s website would most likely lead a member of the public to assume that AI has clearly and unambiguously stated, multiple times, that it is totally independent of government funding, a closer reading of the website shows that that’s not quite the case.
The website does make multiple statements about AI’s refusal to accept state money, but a closer examination shows that nearly all such statements are written to explicitly refer to either AI’s “campaigning work” or their work conducting “human rights research.”
Even sections that a reasonable person would most likely read as saying that AI refuses all state funds are written in this fashion. And so, when Amnesty’s website states, under a section titled “Why Fundraise For Amnesty?”, that “Amnesty International is independent of all governments…we reply on the support of our members, activists and donors to fund our campaigning work around the world,” it should be understood that that is not a blanket statement about rejecting government funding, but refers only to “campaigning work.”
This is because AI classifies its “Human Rights Education” programmes as being totally distinct from both campaigning work and research, and therefore there is nothing to stop AI from accepting government money to fund those programmes. And so, despite saying they are “independent of all governments,” and refuse state support to “ensure our independence,” Amnesty International and its affiliate groups accept considerable sums of money from governments each year.
Increasing the potential for confusion are statements from Colm O’Gorman, CEO of AI, such as “Amnesty isn’t taxpayer funded. We don’t accept or seek state funding for our campaign work.” What he means is that Amnesty is taxpayer funded, but their campaign work is not. O’Gorman has also previously tweeted that it is “important to recognise that we [AI] don’t receive state funding,” without any further clarification.
AI’s “Fundraising Donor Charter” states that AI will “ensure that our communication with our donors is honest and transparent.” This is currently no question as the honesty of AI’s communications, but in relation to transparency it would seem there is a question as to why the public perception of Amnesty’s policies on government support of their work, which has been largely formed by the public facing statements and material of Amnesty International, seems to differ from the reality of the situation.
Prior to publication we asked Amnesty Ireland to comment on their acceptance of the money, and to confirm their current policy on accepting state funding. We will update this article should we receive a response.