Amnesty slammed for campaign against Segal plan

Amnesty International Australia “is everything that is foul in the sector of so-called human rights organisations”, Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-CEO Alex Ryvchin said this week.

His comments came after the organisation backed a campaign urging the federal government to reject plans to combat antisemitism.

In a media release on November 13, the local branch of the global charity promoted an open letter from a handful of fringe far-left Jewish groups together with other anti-Israel organisations calling for the government to reject special envoy Jillian Segal’s antisemitism action plan.

The letter warned Segal’s plan “risks undermining Australia’s democratic freedoms like freedom of expression” and claims it “conflates antisemitism with legitimate criticism of the State of Israel, threatens freedom of political speech, proposes actions in isolation from addressing other forms of racism and discrimination”.

It urged the government not to adopt the widely-used and respected International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, strip away dedicated mechanisms to protect Jews, and fold action on antisemitism back into a generic anti-racism framework.

It stated, “We question the need for a Special Envoy role, particularly given that existing mechanisms, including those within the Australian Human Rights Commission National Anti-Racism framework, provide a potential holistic, evidence-based approach to combating all forms of racism, including antisemitism.”

The release directed enquiries about the letter to Amnesty International Australia’s media team.

“This was an NGO founded to campaign for voiceless prisoners held unjustly yet it did nothing for the Israeli hostages beyond calling their liberators war criminals,” Ryvchin said.

“It was founded to support democracies against tyranny yet it sided with Russia against Ukraine.

“The fact that it is now actively campaigning against a plan to combat antisemitism is beyond parody and a perfect case study of how institutions can be hijacked and turned against the very principles they were founded and are funded to uphold.”

Segal told The AJN, “My plan to combat antisemitism was developed through extensive consultation with respected Jewish organisations across Australia.

“It is disappointing that Amnesty International has lost touch with Australia’s Jewish community and has stepped away from its commitment to universal human rights. Organisations entrusted with defending human rights should listen to affected communities and uphold principles consistently.”

Writing for The AJN online, Jewish Labor figure, radio host and commentator Adam Slonim said Amnesty had “chosen to amplify one of the most disturbing open letters to emerge in years”.

“When Amnesty acts as the amplifier for groups who defend a totalitarian militia and attack the protections that Jews rely on, it crosses from naïveté into moral dereliction. This is not human rights work. This is the laundering of extremism,” Slonim wrote.

He noted that when other minority groups face discrimination, there is no campaign demanding their specific protections be abolished.

“If this were in relation to Islamophobia, anti-Black racism, or anti-Asian hate, would Amnesty be fronting a campaign to abolish a dedicated envoy, delegitimise the community’s own definition of hatred and insist they go back to the queue? Of course not. Only Jews are told that specific protection is anti-democratic.”

Slonim urged people to write to Amnesty International Australia and federal MPs demanding accountability.

“Human rights either apply to Jews or they don’t. Amnesty has just given us a very clear indication of where it stands.”

Amnesty International Australia has been contacted for comment.