Amnesty International UK has expressed regret for releasing a report that included the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales (CBCEW) and many Christian and Catholic organizations on a list of “anti-rights” organizations.

The report, titled A Growing Threat: The Anti-Rights Movement in the UK, was published last week and immediately caused a furor as it also listed a sexual violence support center set up by JK Rowling in Edinburgh as being “anti-rights.”

The report listed 117 organizations it said were working to undermine the rights of women and LGBT+ people.

This included the bishops’ conference, Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), the Evangelical Alliance UK, the Christian Institute, Christian Concern, and the Catholic Herald. The report called for the charity status of many of the organizations to be reviewed.

A spokesperson for CBCEW told Crux Now the conference always works to uphold “the God-given rights of all humanity.”

“The Catholic Church works to uphold the God-given rights of all humanity, without exception. This includes the rights of those unjustly imprisoned, of refugees and migrants, of those who have been trafficked, and the right to life of all people from conception to natural death,” CBCEW said.

“Furthermore, we uphold the right to freedom of religion, conscience and expression as explained in the document of the Second Vatican Council, Dignitatis Humanae. Our belief in the dignity of every person, from which a proper understanding of human rights comes, animates all our work in the field of social justice in England and Wales,” they added.

Amnesty International UK has now said the report was uploaded without the usual checks and that it had been temporarily withdrawn. 

“We regret that this briefing was uploaded to our website without going through the established internal review processes that are in place to ensure consistency, accuracy and alignment with Amnesty International UK’s positions,” a statement from the human rights charity said.

“Its use of language does not reflect the position of Amnesty International UK which is why it was promptly removed. We remain committed to defending human rights, including both the rights of women and the rights of trans people,” it added.

Michael Robinson, SPUC’s executive director, said the Catholic barrister who founded Amnesty International, Peter Benenson, would be “shocked” by the report.

“I am sure he would also be alarmed at branding groups which champion single-sex spaces, religious liberty, the rights of the unborn, and defend the rights of disabled people at the end of life, as anti-rights in this way,” he added.

“It is a shame that Amnesty, who claim to champion human rights, remain silent on so many issues, such as Christians being arrested for silent prayer if they are deemed to be standing in an abortion center buffer zone,” he said.

“But should we be surprised?” he continued. “Amnesty has long since abandoned any pretense of defending the ultimate human right – the right to life,” he said.

“In recent years, Christians have faced growing hostility and, as a former Archbishop of Canterbury said, being forced out of the public square. Ideologically captured campaign groups pick and choose which rights they think are important and worth defending. It is so sad that they never appear to be those of Christians,” Robinson added.

JK Rowling, the author of Harry Potter and an outspoken advocate for women-only spaces, announced on X (formerly Twitter) that any women’s organization on what she called the “Amnesty blacklist” could apply to the JK Rowling Women’s Fund for support if they wanted to take legal action.