Only forty years
Amnesty International expelled the coordinator of its branch in Providence, Rhode Island for publicly disagreeing with Amnesty’s policy of decriminalizing pimping.
Marcia Lieberman, a freelance writer and member of local group 49 since 1976, received a certified letter Tuesday morning alerting her that her membership had been revoked, she said. Lieberman faxed a copy of the letter to the Providence Journal.
In the letter, Ann Burroughs, a board member for the global human rights organization, wrote: “Amnesty member leaders are not free to dissent from Amnesty’s policies and positions while identifying themselves as Amnesty volunteer leaders.”
Amnesty International’s policy on sex workers, which was published in May after a vote by chapters internationally, calls for “the decriminalization of all aspects of adult consensual sex work due to the foreseeable barriers that criminalization creates to the realization of the human rights of sex workers.”
Lieberman, and most of the members of the 10-person chapter she coordinated, disagreed with this, she said. They felt the research into the policy was scant and that it would embolden “pimps and johns” who were exploiting “mostly young women and girls.”
Lieberman first spoke out against the leadership in a Sept. 2015 letter to the editor published in the New York Times. Days later she received a phone call from David Rendell, the group’s Northeastern representative, and an email from Becky Farrar, a membership chairwoman, warning her that members are not allowed to speak against policies in public. If she continued, she was told, this could lead to expulsion.
Let’s read that letter. (Scroll down: it’s the fourth and last one on the page.)
Little has been heard from Amnesty International members who are opposed to the decriminalization of all aspects of sex work. In advance of a forthcoming “open” conversation call, Amnesty members have been officially reminded that although we are not required to agree with or defend this policy, we “are obligated to not convey a different message in the public arena.”
This gag order is contrary to one of the rights on which Amnesty International was founded: freedom of expression.
MARCIA LIEBERMAN
Providence, R.I.
The writer is coordinator of an Amnesty International group.
I was disgusted when Amnesty announced that policy, and this is even worse.
The irony of a local leader of a group dedicated to free speech, being disciplined for speaking out, is not lost on Lieberman, or her membership, she said.
Former AIUSA member Beth Anterni said removing Lieberman is “counterproductive.” She didn’t renew her $25 annual membership in June because she was upset the way Lieberman was treated. Many other members likely will do the same, she said.
“This is someone who has dedicated her life to this work,” said Anterni. “It’s close to her heart.”
Burroughs declined to be interviewed for this story, but issued a statement through Amnesty International’s press office: “Recently, our Board of Directors voted to revoke an individual’s membership after nearly two years of working with her to address multiple violations of our policies. We won’t publicly discuss this matter further in order to protect the privacy of the former member involved.”
Lieberman has the opportunity to appeal her expulsion, but she is not sure whether she will.
Amnesty for pimps, but not for Marcia Lieberman.
“Amnesty member leaders are not free to dissent from Amnesty’s policies and positions while identifying themselves as Amnesty volunteer leaders.”
Oh, the irony!
I wonder if you have seen the documentary A Very British Brothel broadcast by Channel 4 in the UK? It;’s in two parts, both fascinating, I think. I would be curious if, having seen it, you would think there was any benefit in having that brothel subject to police raids as it would be under the legal system usually promoted here, or if it swayed your views on ‘pimping’ at all.
It’s quite hard to see what other action Amnesty could have taken against this member, if, as they claim, she had refused to change her public stance after a long period of discussion. I can’t think of any organisations that allow their members to publicly attack the policy of that organisation.
That’s not to say that the policy is right, just that you can’t really ask to belong to an organisation and be permitted to campaign against it. Personally I think Amnesty is right about the issue, but wrong to take a position on it, it is not where they should be campaigning and the relentless broadening of their remit is weakening the organisation.
It’s not only beyond belief, it’s like a fractal of disbelief. The more you zoom in, the less possible it is to believe what people are saying and doing. The very idea of an organisation like Amnesty International telling its members what to say, do and think has my reinforced industrial-strength irony meter straining at the hinges.
Dissent is surely what AI is all about….right? Right? I mean, right?
That the point of disagreement is so stupid has my humanity meter batting against the zero peg like it’s going to snap off. Bending over backwards to cater for everyone’s rights is a laudable goal but to somehow forget that some people’s goals require the harming of others is unbelievable in a random member of the public, unforgivable in an organisation like AI. Holding this idiotic position is bad enough. Acting like an ethical organisation while holding this position is worse. Forcing members to agree under threat of expulsion, HOLY FUCK.
No, wrong. Amnesty is about justice for people persecuted for acts of conscience. Not being allowed to be a member of Amnesty would not constitute persecution in their (or my) view. They do believe in freedom of conscience but have never argued that membership of private organisations or clubs or associations should be open to everyone regardless of their views or behaviour.
Yes, but that’s only dissent from the people who are not the AI management.
I think the idea is that when you dissent from the position AI took, you are hateful and bigoted, and trying to hurt sex workers – in short, a SWERF (if you’re a RF). The idea that there could be a position that wants to protect sex workers but does not agree on how that would look doesn’t get through to them, so any idea that differs is, by definition, bigoted.
Is there ever a time when this boilerplate is invoked and it’s not a blatant case of ‘please don’t ask us to defend this indefensible position’?
Gee, someone saw a TV doc about upscale sex work in a Western Capital. So obviously that whole ‘trafficking’ thing must be a hoax…probably the Chinese govt wanting to take over our sex trade.
Even the most ‘sex worker positive’ person should be seeking to PROTECT said workers from coercion and exploitation. The protections that ought to work for—say—Nepalese construction workers trapped in Oil States and worked to death, should apply for women trapped in brothels after seeking work as domestics.
The magic of sex is, that everyone’s brains go out the window as soon as its mentioned. Well, out of their own, tailor made ideological window. Its the trafficking, stupid, the ‘work’ is a secondary, though parallel, topic.
I think we may have different ideas about what ‘upscale’ is. But you should take a look at the programme, it is well done and funny and it might change your mind or colour your view. It did for the person I watched it with.