Amnesty International faces criticism after reports it linked the Ukrainian military

Despite the outcry over its report accusing the Ukrainian military of putting civilians at risk in its resistance to the Russian invasion, the NGO Amnesty International, led by the tireless Agnes Callamard, is continuing the trend.

Amnesty’s report last week accused Ukraine of building military infrastructure in populated areas in violation of international humanitarian law, sparking the most explosive controversy for a major NGO in recent years.

Critics have been unleashed around the world and in Ukraine, where President Volodymyr Zelensky blamed Amnesty International. “Victim and aggressor on equal footing”. The report caused internal divisions, notably leading to the resignation of Oksana Pokaltsouk, head of Amnesty in Ukraine, on the grounds that she was serving involuntarily. “Russian Propaganda”.

But French Agnes Callamard, Amnesty’s general secretary since March 2021, saw others. As the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions for the 2018 investigation into the assassination of Saudi journalist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul, he received death threats from a Saudi official.

“We fully stand by our decisions”Friday M^me Callamard assured AFP that the research was conducted with the same intensity “All the work of Amnesty International”. They overlap with the findings of many media outlets or international organizations such as the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

In a statement on June 29, the OHCHR lamented “Coordinated armed groups, such as Russian forces and Ukrainian forces, have taken positions in residential areas or near civilian infrastructure and launched military operations without taking measures to protect civilians. According to international humanitarian law, civilians are present.”.