A Muslim former employee of Amnesty International has claimed she was sacked for challenging its decision to designate the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny as a prisoner of conscience despite his history of anti-immigrant statements.
Aisha Jung, 50, said she lost her job at the organisation’s London office after she objected to the award of the status, arguing that Navalny had also incited violence against Muslims.
Jung, who worked for Amnesty International for 17 years, most recently as a senior campaigner on Belarus, is taking the organisation to an employment tribunal next month alleging whistleblowing, religious and disability discrimination.
Navalny was designated a prisoner of conscience after he was arrested on his return to Russian in January 2021. The designation was controversial and was withdrawn the next month, with Amnesty International citing “hate speech” from the mid-2000s. However, it was restored in May 2021, along with an apology to Navalny, after an outcry.
Jung said she found the May decision shocking and, as a Muslim, it left her feeling isolated in an organisation that an internal review in same year found had a culture of white privilege.
“I feel really angry, I feel burned by the [human rights] sector,” said Jung. “We all know about institutional and systemic white privilege and racism and I saw it around me for a long time and now I’ve experienced it personally.
“This is me and my family and my community. Islamophobia is rife enough, and my family and I navigate it enough without needing people like Amnesty getting on the bandwagon.”
She highlighted a 2007 video in which Navalny rails against “cockroaches” while images of apparently Muslim men were flashed on screen. He then goes on to “shoot” an actor playing an attacker who seemed to be wearing traditional Muslim clothing. Jung said: “Let’s be very clear, he advocated shooting dead Muslims.”
In another video, Navalny dressed as a dentist, appearing to compare immigrants to rotten teeth.
Jung said that Navalny’s case compared unfavourably with that of Nelson Mandela, who had prisoner of conscience status removed in 1964 when he was convicted of offences related to the armed struggle against South Africa’s apartheid regime.
She also claimed that Uganda’s main opposition leader, Bobi Wine, was denied the status because of past homophobic comments, despite his more recent comments advocating tolerance.
When restoring the prisoner of conscience designation to Navalny, Amnesty International said “opinions and behaviour may evolve over time”. However, he has declined to renounce his past statements in numerous interviews.
Jung said she was consistently told she had no right to challenge the Navalny decision because it was policy and of no personal application to her. As a result, she said she became ill with anxiety and stress and could not work. When she refused to return, she said, she was sacked.
Jung has instructed Rahman Lowe solicitors and is crowdfunding to help pay her legal fees.
Navalny was arrested on his return to Russia after an assassination attempt by FSB operatives. Critics of the decision to withdraw prisoner of conscience status claimed it was a propaganda victory for Vladimir Putin.
Jung said she did not doubt Navalny had been targeted for his political views and that Amnesty International should do everything in its power to free him. “There’s a lot of ways that Amnesty work,” she said.
A spokesperson for the organisation said: “Amnesty disputes that it has treated Ms Jung in the manner alleged, or that she has been treated unlawfully in any way.” The spokesperson added that the independent review on racism and discrimination highlighted by Jung was “commissioned by Amnesty International, to help us learn what issues we face internally and how we can improve on our journey to become an anti-racist organisation”.
