Dear AIUSA members,
Today at 4:30pm GMT, the International Secretariat posted on the Amnesty International website the Laddie report which investigates the death of Gaëtan Mootoo, who was a long-time Africa researcher for Amnesty. The UK barrister James Laddie had a scope of work to determine whether there was a breach of the duty of care Amnesty is obligated to provide staff in the case of Gaëtan taking his own life. While the report does not find a breach in the duty of care, Laddie does highlight a number of serious concerns regarding the culture and structure of Amnesty. It is also particularly critical of the organization’s management, and there are a series of recommendations in the report that have been accepted in full by Kumi and the SLT.
You can find Kumi’s response to the report here. Please note that any media queries should be directed to the AIUSA media team – media@aiusa.org – and we are deferring all comments to the IS spokespeople.
Today’s report includes information that is difficult to read and includes recommendations that can be applied to our work here in the U.S. as well as across the global movement. Our thoughts are with people who have been impacted by Gaëtan’s tragic death. When a colleague takes their own life, it can affect any of us in different ways and we all need to be mindful of the potential impact on our colleagues and ourselves.
