Amnesty International condemns Western ‘double standards’ in response to war in Ukraine

He said the West’s response to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine exposed its “double standards” on human rights violations in other parts of the world. Amnesty Internationalwho also warned of a “deteriorating” situation in Latin America.

His annual Global Human Rights Report denounces Western silence in 2022 on the situation in Saudi Arabia, repression in Egypt and Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.

The reaction to the Russian aggression that began on February 24, 2022 is “huge, it is a response that should become a model for other current and future crises,” the Russian Secretary General told AFP. AmnestyAgnes Callamar.

But “it has exposed the West’s very double standards” and its “inconsistent response to many other violations of the UN Charter,” adding to “instability and impunity” as in China, with crackdowns in Xinjiang or Hong Kong, the report says. abounds.

Many countries have imposed sanctions on Moscow and opened their borders to Ukrainian refugees, and the International Criminal Court has launched a war crimes investigation that has called for the capture of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Thus, this response will be in contrast to other situations, such as in Saudi Arabia, where people are imprisoned for their opinions in “grossly unfair trials” or 81 people were sentenced to death in one day.

In Egypt, according to a London-based NGO, thousands of human rights activists, journalists, protesters and suspected dissidents remain behind bars, and “torture continues to be widely used.”

Amnesty also criticizes the West for “refusing” to confront Israel’s “apartheid system” against the Palestinians, which “strengthened in 2022” with the expansion of “illegal settlements”, and instead “attack” those they denounce.

And the United States, which has taken in tens of thousands of Ukrainians, expelled “more than 25,000 Haitians” between September 2021 and May 2022, subjecting “many of them to torture and other ill-treatment,” Callamard condemned.

According to the organization, the “self-interest” of members of global and regional institutions also prevent “adequate” responses to conflicts that kill thousands of people, for example, in Ethiopia, Burma and Yemen.

“Deterioration” in Latin America

As this year marks the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, born from the wreckage of the Second World War, Amnesty International condemns regression in all regions of the world.

“In Latin America, as in the rest of the world, we are seeing a deterioration in the protection of rights, in particular the right to demonstrate, to have a different opinion,” he assured. AFP Callamar, who gives the example of Peru.

Since the fall of Peruvian President Pedro Castillo in late 2022, 54 people have died in violent protests, according to authorities. The prosecution is investigating her successor, Dina Boluarte, to assess her responsibility for these deaths.

“In a number of cases, the reaction of the authorities to protests led to human rights violations, including the unlawful use of force,” especially “against the indigenous and peasant population,” the organization notes.

“Indigenous peoples were the first to suffer from this repression [sobre los derechos] either in Mexico, or in Peru, or in Colombia,” the Secretary General emphasizes.

The 2022 report also warns of violence against women, especially in Mexico, where there have been hundreds of murders of women “committed with impunity” and of discrimination suffered by Venezuelan refugees in Colombia, Ecuador or Peru.

In the year marked by the decision of the United States Supreme Court to abolish the right to abortion at the national level, Amnesty be warned that it is “still punishable in five countries” in the rest of the continent, such as El Salvador.

The NGO highlights Colombia’s decision to decriminalize abortion during the first 24 weeks of pregnancy, which is one of the achievements for women, along with Spain’s “Only yes is yes” law, which considers any sexual activity without explicit consent as violence.

The war in Ukraine has also diverted attention “from the climate crisis” when global warming-related catastrophes seem “out of control,” the organization adds.

(According to AFP)