In constant support of Ukraine since Russia invaded it in February 2022, the West is distinguished by the “softness” of its reactions to other major human rights violations, observed Amnesty International on Tuesday, denouncing this “Two weights, two measures”.
Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine “exposed the hypocrisy of Western states, which reacted forcefully to Russian aggression but turned a blind eye to grave violations elsewhere, if not been accomplices”, deplores the NGO in its annual report.
And Amnesty to pin the “deafening silence” surrounding Saudi Arabia – where according to the NGO justice has notably pronounced the death penalty during “flagrantly unfair” trials and peaceful demonstrators have been “sentenced to many long prison terms” – or Egypt, where thousands of opponents of the regime “remain arbitrarily detained and/or unjustly prosecuted”.
“The response to what happened to the Russian aggression against the Ukrainian people is a formidable response. It is a response that should be a model for other present and future crises”, reacted Agnès Callamard , the secretary general of Amnesty, interviewed by AFP.
But “by neglecting other crises, we diminish the value of what has been done in Ukraine”, she continued, her organization lamenting that the West has “tolerated” “similar acts of aggression in other countries”. ‘other countries’, ‘solely because its interests are at stake’.
In Israel, governments over the past year have “deployed measures forcing ever more Palestinians to leave their homes, developing illegal settlements and legalizing settlements” in the occupied West Bank, but many Western governments “preferred to stay away from them. to take from those who denounced apartheid”, regrets Amnesty.
In Ethiopia, the NGO criticizes “the pitiful responses” to “one of the deadliest conflicts in recent history”, which would have killed 500,000 people, according to the United States.
Always contradictory signals, the doors of the European Union, “wide open to welcome Ukrainian refugees”, remained “closed” for people fleeing Afghanistan or Syria, regretted Amnesty.
The United States, which took in tens of thousands of Ukrainians, between September 2021 and May 2022 “expelled more than 25,000 Haitians, often after detaining them and subjecting many of them to torture”, s is indignant Agnès Callamard.
The West’s “selective and self-serving” approach to human rights has also bolstered the actions of other countries criticized for human rights abuses, including China, where the “systematic repression of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang and Tibet continued”, and the “Hong Kong government continued to suppress the movement for the struggle for democracy”, according to the NGO.
The war in Ukraine has finally diverted “not only resources, but also attention from the climate crisis”, as global warming disasters seem “out of control” and world leaders have failed to agree on the measures aimed at limiting the rise in temperatures below the 1.5°C threshold.
The year 2022 has generally seen a “deterioration of civil and political rights”, these undergoing “repression” in certain Western countries such as France, where Agnès Callamard points to “an illegal exercise of force” by police and gendarmes against Some protestors.
Women’s rights have experienced “a turn for the worse”. In particular in Iran, where some were killed “for having danced, sung, for not having worn a veil”, in Afghanistan, where they have been “transformed into objects” since the Taliban took power, and even in the United States. United, where access to abortion is now for many questioned, notes the NGO.
03/28/2023 07:40:42 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
