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Tag: Amnesty International

  • Ukraine: Amnesty International report sparks furor, resignation

    The head of Amnesty International’s Ukraine chapter has resigned, saying the human rights group shot down her opposition to publishing a report that claimed Ukrainian forces had uncovered civilians to Russian assaults by basing themselves in populated areas.

    In a press release posted Friday evening on Facebook, Oksana Pokalchuk accused her former employer of disregarding Ukraine’s wartime realities and the considerations of native employees members who had pushed for the report back to be reworked.

    The report, launched Thursday, drew indignant denouncements from prime Ukrainian officers and criticism from Western diplomats, who accused the authors of creating imprecise claims that appeared to equate the Ukrainian navy’s defensive actions to the techniques of the invading Russians.

    “It is painful to admit, but I and the leadership of Amnesty International have split over values,” Pokalchuk wrote. “I believe that any work done for the good of society should take into account the local context, and think through consequences.”

    Russia has repeatedly justified assaults on civilian areas by alleging that Ukrainian fighters had arrange firing positions on the focused areas.

    Pokalchuk mentioned her workplace had requested the group’s management to present the Ukrainian Defense Ministry sufficient time to answer the report’s findings and argued that its failure to take action would additional Kremlin misinformation and propaganda efforts.

    “I am convinced that our surveys should be done thoroughly, bearing in mind the people whose lives often depend directly on the words and actions of international organizations,” she mentioned.

    In a information launch that accompanied the report’s publication, Amnesty International Secretary-general Agnes Callamard mentioned the group had “documented a sample of Ukrainian forces placing civilians in danger and violating the legal guidelines of warfare once they function in populated areas.

    “Being in a defensive position does not exempt the Ukrainian military from respecting international humanitarian law,” she mentioned Thursday.

    Russian state-sponsored media quoted the report back to help Moscow’s declare that Russia has solely launched strikes on navy targets in the course of the warfare. The spokesperson for Russia’s Foreign Ministry cited the Amnesty International assertions as proof that Ukraine was utilizing civilians as human shields.

    Multiple Western students of worldwide and navy legislation went on social media to reject the human protect declare. They mentioned the report contained poor phrasing that muddied authorized distinctions and ignored the fight situations in Ukraine.

    United Nations warfare crimes investigator Marc Garlasco, tweeting in a private capability Friday, accused Amnesty International of “getting the law wrong” and mentioned Ukraine was taking steps to guard civilians, akin to serving to them relocate.

    Ukrainian authorities on the nationwide and regional stage have repeatedly urged residents of frontline areas to evacuate, though tens of 1000’s of people that left their houses since Russia’s invasion have returned after working out of help or feeling unwelcome.

    Ukrainian leaders, together with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the nation’s international and protection ministers, have been scathing of their condemnation of the report, which they mentioned failed to supply context on Russia’s bombardments of populated areas and documented assaults on civilians.

    Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary-general, posted a tweet Friday that defended the group’s work and took purpose at its critics.
    “Ukrainian and Russian social media mobs and trolls: they are all at it today attacking Amnesty investigations. This is called war propaganda, disinformation, misinformation. This won’t dent our impartiality and won’t change the facts,” she wrote.

    Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba issued an indignant response to Callamard wherein he accused her group of “fake neutrality” and enjoying into the Kremlin’s fingers.

    “Apparently, Amnesty’s Secretary General calls me a ‘mob’ and a ‘troll’, but this won’t stop me from saying that its report distorts reality, draws false moral equivalence between the aggressor and the victim, and boosts Russia’s disinformation effort. This is fake ‘neutrality’, not truthfulness,” Kuleba wrote on Twitter.

  • Despite court docket reduction, Aakar Patel stopped once more at Bengaluru airport

    By Express News Service

    NEW DELHI, BENGALURU: Aakar Patel, former chairman of the Amnesty International, India, was stopped once more from travelling to the United States on the Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru, late on Thursday evening, although a Delhi metropolitan Justice of the Peace’s court docket earlier within the day allowed him to journey overseas. 

    The court docket directed the CBI director to apologise to Patel for a lookout round (LOC) issued in opposition to him by the company, which barred him from boarding a US-bound flight from Bengaluru on Wednesday. Ordering the CBI to withdraw the LOC, the court docket stated a written apology from the CBI director acknowledging the lapse by his subordinate would go a great distance in therapeutic his wounds.

    Despite the talking order, Patel was stopped on the immigration counter at Bengaluru late at evening because the LOC had not been lifted until then. Patel tweeted round 10.30 pm on Thursday, “Have been stopped at immigration once more, CBI has not taken me off their lookout round.’’ Legal consultants stated that the issue might be due to the delay within the court docket order reaching officers on the airport.  

  • Amnesty accuses Israel of imposing ‘apartheid’ on Palestinians

    Amnesty International accused Israel on Tuesday of subjecting Palestinians to a system of apartheid based on insurance policies of “segregation, dispossession and exclusion” that it mentioned amounted to crimes in opposition to humanity.
    The London-based rights group mentioned its findings had been based mostly on analysis and authorized evaluation in a 211-page report into Israeli seizure of Palestinian land and property, illegal killings, forcible switch of individuals and denial of citizenship.
    Israel mentioned the report, the second by a world rights group in lower than a yr to accuse it of pursuing a coverage of apartheid, “consolidates and recycles lies” from hate teams and was designed to “pour fuel onto the fire of antisemitism”. It accused Amnesty UK of utilizing “double standards and demonization in order to delegitimize Israel”.
    The report drew reward from Palestinians.
    Amnesty mentioned Israel was imposing a system of oppression and domination in opposition to Palestinians “wherever it has control over their rights”, together with Arab residents of Israel, Palestinians in Israeli-occupied territory and refugees dwelling overseas.
    The measures included restrictions on Palestinian motion in territory occupied within the 1967 Middle East battle, underinvestment in Palestinian communities in Israel, and stopping the return of Palestinian refugees.
    Alongside forcible transfers, torture and illegal killings, which Amnesty mentioned had been supposed to take care of a system of “oppression and domination”, they represent “the crime against humanity of apartheid”.
    In a press release, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid mentioned “Israel is not perfect, but it is a democracy committed to international law and open to scrutiny” with a free press and a powerful Supreme Court.
    “I hate to use the argument that if Israel were not a Jewish state, nobody in Amnesty would dare argue against it, but in this case, there is no other possibility,” he mentioned.
    Bassam Al-Salhe, a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), mentioned it “confirms and supports the long-standing Palestinian position towards the nature of the Israeli occupation measures. It reflects the real status on the ground.”
    Israel has cited safety considerations in imposing journey restrictions on Palestinians, whose rebellion within the early 2000s included suicide bombings in Israeli cities.

    Palestinians search a state of their very own within the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as its capital. Gaza, a tiny coastal strip that Israel additionally took within the 1967 battle however left in 2005, is run by Hamas, thought of by the West to be a terrorist group.
    The final spherical of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks collapsed in 2014.
    Amnesty mentioned the U.N. Security Council ought to impose an arms embargo on Israel for killing scores of civilians throughout weekly protests on the border with Gaza in 2018-19. Israel has mentioned these protests included makes an attempt by Palestinian militants to breach its border fence.
    Amnesty additionally referred to as on the International Criminal Court to contemplate the accusation of apartheid in its investigation into attainable battle crimes dedicated by either side throughout a number of bouts of battle within the Palestinian territories.

  • Amnesty flags Qatar rights abuses with French soccer physique

    Human rights activists in France have urged the nation’s soccer officers to concentrate to rights violations of migrant employees in Qatar a yr earlier than the World Cup.
    Amnesty International activists unveiled an enormous banner Wednesday in central Paris on the French soccer federation’s constructing.
    “Thousands have died in Qatar and the soccer federation has not said a word,” the banner reads.
    Lola Schulmann, an advocacy officer with Amnesty in Paris, stated the group has repeatedly requested soccer officers for a gathering to debate the problem of human rights violations of migrant laborers who’ve labored in Qatar to construct World Cup stadiums and different infrastructure for the match, which begins in November 2022.
    “Unfortunately, we have no response from the federation,” Schulmann stated.

    Schulmann stated there are 2 million migrant employees in Qatar and “every day they see their rights violated.” She added that the banner “is our message to the national federation that we care about their rights.”
    Qatar has refused criticism of its labor legal guidelines and practices and World Cup organizers have repeatedly stated they’ve been unfairly scrutinized regardless of overhauling their laws.
    In a report launched final month, Amnesty stated Qatar has not delivered on the promise it made to the International Labor Organization in 2017 to finish the migrant employees’ abuse and exploitation. Workers throughout the nation are nonetheless “left at the mercy of unscrupulous employers, facing wage theft, unsafe working conditions,” the report stated.
    Workers are nonetheless prohibited from forming unions to collectively battle for his or her rights whereas justice evades them and compensation for abuse stays scarce, permitting employers to use their workforce with impunity, Amnesty stated in its newest report on the World Cup within the Gulf nation.

  • Taliban unlawfully killed 13 ethnic Hazaras, says Rights group

    Taliban forces unlawfully killed 13 ethnic Hazaras, most of them Afghan troopers who had surrendered to the insurgents, a distinguished rights group stated Tuesday.
    The killings happened within the village of Kahor in Daykundi province in central Afghanistan on Aug. 30, in line with an investigation by Amnesty International.
    Eleven of the victims had been members of the Afghan nationwide safety forces and two had been civilians, amongst them a 17-year-old woman.

    The reported killings happened about two weeks after the Taliban took management of Afghanistan in a blitz marketing campaign, culminating of their takeover of Kabul.

    At the time, Taliban leaders sought to reassure Afghans that they’d modified from their earlier harsh rule of the nation within the late Nineties.
    The world has been watching whether or not the Taliban would dwell as much as their preliminary guarantees of tolerance and inclusiveness towards girls and ethnic minorities, amongst them the Shiite Hazaras.
    However, Taliban actions to this point, comparable to renewed restrictions on girls and the appointment of an all-male authorities, have been met with dismay by the worldwide neighborhood.
    Hazaras make up round 9% of Afghanistan’s 36 million folks.
    They are sometimes focused as a result of they’re Shiite Muslims in a Sunni-majority nation.
    Amnesty’s secretary normal, Agnes Callamard, stated that “these cold-blooded executions (of the Hazaras) are further proof that the Taliban are committing the same horrific abuses they were notorious for during their previous rule of Afghanistan.”
    Taliban spokespersons Zabihullah Mujahid and Bilal Karimi didn’t reply to calls from The Associated Press searching for remark.
    The rights group stated Sadiqullah Abed, the Taliban-appointed chief of police for Daykundi, denied any killings had occurred and solely stated {that a} member of the Taliban had been wounded in an assault within the province.

    The Taliban took management of Daykundi province on Aug. 14, in line with the Amnesty report, and an estimated 34 former troopers sought security in Khidir district.
    The troopers, who had authorities navy gear and weaponry with them, agreed to give up to the Taliban.
    Mohammad Azim Sedaqat, who led the group’s give up, organized to decommission the weapons within the presence of Taliban members.
    On Aug. 30, an estimated 300 Taliban fighters arrived in a convoy near Dahani Qul village, the place the safety forces members had been staying, some with members of the family, in line with Amnesty’s report.
    As the safety forces tried to go away the realm with their households, Taliban fighters caught up with them and opened fireplace on the gang, killing a 17-year-old woman named Masuma.
    One soldier fired again, killing a Taliban fighter and wounding one other.

    The Taliban continued to shoot because the households fled, killing two troopers, in line with the report.
    After 9 safety forces surrendered, the Taliban took them to a close-by river basin and killed them, in line with the rights group.
    Amnesty stated it verified images and video proof taken within the aftermath of the killings.

  • Saudi Arabia says it executed three troopers for ‘high treason’

    Saudi Arabia executed three troopers Saturday it accused of committing “high treason,” with out elaborating on which enemy the dominion believed the lads aided.
    The state-run Saudi Press Agency recognized the lads as troopers working within the Defence Ministry.

    It didn’t elaborate on how the lads aided the dominion’s enemies. Saudi Arabia is combating Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. The kingdom additionally views Iran as a regional archrival.

    The kingdom mentioned the three males had been convicted in courtroom and a later royal order served as a dying warrant.
    Saudi Arabia carried out the world’s third most executions in 2019, in accordance with figures from Amnesty International. The kingdom adopted China and Iran, respectively. In 2019, the dominion put to dying 184 individuals.

  • COVID worsened international human rights abuses: Amnesty report

    Many governments “weaponized” the coronavirus pandemic over the past yr to additional repress residents’ rights, international rights group Amnesty International mentioned in its annual report, launched Wednesday. The report additionally says the virus disproportionately hit ethnic minorities, refugees and ladies.
    “At the global level, the COVID-19 pandemic exposed and exacerbated inequalities,” Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Research and Advocacy Director, informed DW.
    “Cruelly, those who gave the most were often protected the least in this pandemic. The pandemic had a devastating impact on health workers,” Luther added.
    In 2020, governments had been required to showcase distinctive management to mitigate the impression of the pandemic, particularly on deprived teams. Amnesty International’s new Secretary General Agnes Callamard blasted governments for failing to tackle that position. She referred to as on leaders to reset and reboot to construct a world grounded in equality, human rights, and humanity.
    “We must learn from the pandemic, and come together to work boldly and creatively so everyone is on an equal footing,” she mentioned in a press launch.
    The report covers 149 international locations: Here are eight examples, in accordance with Amnesty, of human rights abuses.
    Egypt
    Under the rule of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Egyptian authorities have carried out brutal repressions of freedom of expression, clamping down on narratives essential of the federal government.
    The onset of the coronavirus pandemic noticed a brand new clampdown — reprisals towards journalists and well being employees who raised public well being issues or deviated from Egypt’s official narrative on COVID-19.

    Amnesty documented the arrest of a minimum of 9 well being employees on terrorism-related costs, in addition to “spreading false news,” pending additional investigations.
    “These are health workers who in Egypt expressed safety concerns and criticized the government’s handling of the pandemic and other social media platforms,” Luther mentioned.
    According to Luther, the investigations are nonetheless ongoing.
    “This shows, in a way, the broader reality. The authorities — within the context of the pandemic — clamped down on free speech online and offline.”
    Lebanon
    Over eight months after a devastating explosion on August 4, 2020, that tore via its capital Beirut, Lebanese authorities have did not ship investigation outcomes to the households of over 200 individuals who had been killed within the blast.
    The official account attributed the blast to 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate saved for years on the port, however authorities failed to carry anybody accountable.
    In its report, Amnesty International cited leaked official paperwork the place authorities in customs, the judiciary, the army and safety equipment warned successive governments of the harmful stockpile of chemical substances on the port a minimum of 10 occasions previously six years.

    The rights advocacy group raised issues concerning the lack of independence and impartiality of the judicial council, which is tasked with investigating the blast.
    “The judicial council also does not have jurisdiction to prosecute sitting or former officials, including the president and ministers,” Luther mentioned.
    “That’s particularly of concern in this case, given the really serious and striking allegations that state bodies were responsible for the tragic events of August 4.”
    Brazil
    Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, infamous for racist remarks about indigenous individuals, has allowed the razing of the Amazon rainforest to hold on unimpeded since he took workplace in January 2019.
    Under Bolsonaro, police violence escalated in the course of the pandemic. Deforestation has soared whereas the police have tightened their grip on environmental activists.

    Amnesty recorded a minimum of 3,181 civilians killed by the police throughout the nation between January and June final yr – a mean of 17 deaths per day. According to the NGO Global Witness, the nation is the third most deadly on this planet for environmental and human rights activists.
    In 2020, the plight of Brazil’s indigenous individuals worsened each resulting from COVID and unlawful mining, wildfires and the seizure of land, whereas authorities labored to dismantle establishments monitoring and defending these areas, in accordance with the report.
    Mexico
    While home and gender-based violence surged globally in the course of the pandemic, the North American nation drew an unprecedented attendance at protests on International Women’s Day in March after two grotesque killings, the report mentioned.
    Amnesty cited the killing of a 25-year-old girl who was reportedly skinned and mutilated by her husband. Just a few days later in an unrelated incident, the physique of a 17-year-old woman was present in a plastic bag.

    “While we are not criticizing lockdowns in and of themselves, many women were denied increased barriers of protection and support during that period,” Luther informed DW.
    In 2020, over 3,700 killings of girls had been reported. More than 900 of these had been investigated as femicides, in accordance with Amnesty.
    “Violence against women is an epidemic of global proportions. And it is governments’ failures to prioritize measures to combat violence that enabled this to happen,” Luther added.
    Bulgaria
    In its common overview, Amnesty referred to as on governments to take pressing motion to realize gender justice and defend members of the LGBT+ neighborhood from backlash.
    The report particularly talked about a homophobic assault in Bulgaria — the place over 70% of LGBT+ individuals really feel compelled to cover their sexual orientation, in accordance with a survey carried out by the EU Fundamental Rights Agency.
    Football followers reportedly wished to “cleanse” town of Plovdiv of the LGBT+ neighborhood and attacked youngsters, injuring a few of them.
    Plovdiv launched a legal investigation into the assault, which was ongoing until the top of the yr.
    Denmark
    The Scandinavian nation’s discriminatory housing legal guidelines as soon as once more got here underneath the highlight within the report, which additionally made point out of an increase in each verbal and bodily abuse focusing on minorities throughout a COVID lockdown from March to June final yr.
    Amnesty raised issues {that a} controversial 2018 regulation on social housing continued to be in full impact.

    The regulation labels neighborhoods comprising greater than 50% of “non-Westerners” as “ghettos” and topics residents and guests to double the legal penalties for sure offenses.
    While Amnesty made no point out of the Danish authorities’s plans to reform the laws, activists lately warned that the proposed reforms would slash the share of individuals of “non-Western” origins in social housing all the way down to 30%.
    Myanmar
    At least 550 civilians have been killed in Myanmar because the army coup on February 1, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners studies.
    But even earlier than the army overthrew the elected authorities led by Aung San Suu Kyi, armed battle had escalated within the nation. Amnesty warned of “serious human rights violations,” together with torture and different ill-treatment of civilian detainees by the hands of presidency forces focusing on minorities.

    Indiscriminate airstrikes killed and injured civilians all year long, notably placing youngsters in danger.
    Last February, on Children’s Day, an artillery shell landed on a main college within the Rakhine State, injuring a minimum of 17 college students.
    The army endangered the lives of civilians by occupying faculties and changing them to non permanent bases, probably turning all faculties into targets, Amnesty wrote.
    Kenya
    The Kenyan police’s extreme use of pressure took heart stage within the sub-Saharan nation’s violations of rights, as monitored by the worldwide group.
    In January, the police fired rounds of reside ammunition at peaceable demonstrators in Nairobi, who had been protesting the dire state of roads of their neighborhood, and killed a 17-year-old boy.
    The police additionally enforced COVID curfews with deadly pressure, killing a minimum of six individuals in simply 10 days, Amnesty wrote.

  • Bangladesh strikes second group of Rohingya refugees to distant island

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    By: Reuters | Chittagong (bangladesh) |

    Updated: December 29, 2020 2:36:04 pm

    Bangladesh began transferring a second group of Rohingya Muslim refugees to a low-lying island within the Bay of Bengal on Tuesday, regardless of opposition from rights teams fearful concerning the new website’s vulnerability to floods.
    The United Nations says it has not been concerned within the relocation however urged the federal government to make sure no refugee is pressured to maneuver to Bhasan Char island, which solely emerged from the ocean 20 years in the past.
    “We are ready to receive the new arrivals,” Navy Commodore Abdullah Al Mamun Chowdhury stated from the island of the 1,804 Rohingya being moved in seven ships.
    A primary group of greater than 1,600 Rohingya, members of a minority group who’ve fled from Myanmar, have been relocated from their rickety camps close to the Myanmar border to Bhasan Char earlier within the month.
    Storms often hit the Bangladesh coast. In 1991, practically 143,000 individuals have been killed when a cyclone whipped up a 4.5-metre (15-foot) tidal surge.
    The authorities has constructed a 12-km (7.5 mile) embankment to guard the island together with housing for 100,000 individuals. It dismisses the dangers.
    “The island is completely safe,” Foreign Minister Abdul Momen informed Reuters.
    The authorities additionally says the relocation is voluntary however some refugees from the primary group have spoken about being coerced to go.
    The human rights group Amnesty International additionally expressed concern.
    “(A) lack of transparency in the consultation process with refugees, and allegations from within the community about cash incentives being offered to Rohingya families to relocate to Bhashan Char as well as use of intimidation tactics are making the relocation process questionable,” the group stated.

    Momen rejected such doubts.
    “The Rohingya people who have shifted there are very happy with the arrangement. Some evil groups are spreading negative propaganda,” he stated.
    Two Rohingya males on board one of many ships heading to the island from the port of Chittagong informed Reuters they have been transferring to their new residence voluntarily. One stated he was becoming a member of kin already there whereas the opposite was transferring together with his spouse and 6 youngsters.
    “There is so much suffering and conflict in the camp,” stated one of many males. “We are going there in the hope of a better life.”
    Reuters is withholding their names given the controversy across the transfer among the many group, with many eager to remain on the mainland.

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