Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year exposed the West’s “double standards” for human rights abuses around the world, Amnesty International said on Tuesday.
In its annual global report for 2022, Amnesty highlighted what it described as Western silence on other human rights abuses, including Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
“The West’s spectacular response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has highlighted double standards, highlighting in comparison how inconsistent their responses have been to so many other violations of the UN Charter,” said secretary Amnesty general Agnes Callamard while presenting the group’s global report in Paris.
Russia’s full-scale offensive, which began on February 24, 2022, “gave us an all-too-rare glimpse of what can happen when there is political will to act” as the West shut down to support Ukraine, he said. she
Many countries imposed sanctions on Moscow and opened their borders to refugees from Ukraine after the invasion, and the International Criminal Court launched an investigation into war crimes in Ukraine.
But Amnesty said the conflict highlighted shortcomings in responding to abuses elsewhere in the world.
Amnesty, fellow human rights watchers, Human Rights Watch, and a United Nations special rapporteur have concluded that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians amounts to apartheid, or separation on racial grounds, a charge that the state of Israel denies. .
Last year, “successive Israeli governments implemented measures that forced more Palestinians from their homes, expanding illegal settlements, and legalizing settlements and outposts across the occupied West Bank”, Amnesty said.
But despite this – and despite Israeli forces killing “at least 153 civilians, including many children” in the occupied West Bank – Western nations have not succeeded in ending the “system of oppression” that, he said.
(New Arabic)
