Chazza
14 Jun 2011

It is utterly grotesque that a woman who was well paid for doing her job should, as part of her terms of severance, receive, after just 9 years in the job, a severance payment of over 4 times her salary. Here in the real world, after 30 years loyal public service my wife was made redundant with compensation of just over half a year's salary.
Ms Khan might (just) save her honour and the good reputation of Amnesty by returning £400,000 or so to support the causes she claims to take seriously.
Meanwhile, I am withholding the large sum of money I intended to donate to Amnesty in support of what I imagined to be its good humanitarian work, never thinking that it would go to line the deep pockets of some fatcat charitocrat.

[Reply]

Kiana
28 Feb 2011

What a disgrace - shame on Irene Khan for extracting this payment, shame on the Charity Commission for not giving the job of commissioner to someone with a more genuine commitment to charitable causes, and shame on Amnesty for agreeing to such a contract - even the new SG apparently has a salary of £192,000 - isn't that about the same as the Prime Minister? How on earth is that justified? At a time of acute financial crisis, the charity sector needs to be led by people who inspire confidence and live by the values they espouse.

[Reply]

Bob
23 Feb 2011

Difficult to stomach - neither Amnesty nor Ms K are doing themselves any favours by not explaining this more fully
Ex-donor !

[Reply]

Gary
23 Feb 2011

According there last set of accounts the real original error was made in not allowing AI Ltd to not become a registered charitable company. Then it would have then had a possible say in this sort of issue and addressed with regard to public interest

[Reply]

Eric Colvin
24 Feb 2011
Response to [Gary ]

I'm a little confused by your double negatives. What are you saying, here? Is it that, were AI Ltd a registered charitable company, Irene Khan's colleagues at the Charity Commission could then have prevented her payout? If so, I find this unlikely.

I can quite understand why contractual law would make it very difficult for a Ltd company (indeed, even for a charity) to renege on any pay agreement.

But I can't understand how Irene Khan (the originator of the Demand Dignity campaign in resistance to ruthless, corporate exploitation of impoverished communities) can square this with her conscience. She must understand that such a diversion of charitable funds towards a single worker smacks of legalised embezzlement.

It seems to me that she has a moral obligation to "reinvest" at least two thirds of her handsome windfall back into Amnesty's work - about which (at any rate, until 2009) she has professed to be passionate.

Or does she - like Qadaffi, or Arafat, or Mugabe - simply see herself as such a great leader, striding the world stage, that she is somehow divinely entitled to the sort of bonuses about which world statesmen like Blair or Cameron might only dream?

Unless she has already returned the bulk of this payout, then this whole affair stinks, to me, of hypocrisy.

[Reply]

Norman Ridley
25 Feb 2011
Response to [Eric Colvin]

Exactly my reaction. How can someone who has seen how desperate is the need for this money to be used for Amnesty's work take so much out of the 'pot'?

[Reply]

Carl Allen
24 Feb 2011
Response to [Eric Colvin]

So was the settlement paid as damages in relation to an employment outrage or a human rights outrage or both or?

Until that is known, it looks like Amnesty has a lot to hide.

[Reply]