Global outrage over Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year has only exposed the West's double standards for human rights violations around the world, Amnesty International has announced.
In its 2022 annual world report, Amnesty pointed to what it described as Western silence on rights in Saudi Arabia, repression in Egypt and Israel's treatment of Palestinians, reports Hina.
"Double Standards"
"The West's forceful response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine has highlighted the double standards, exposing how insignificant their responses have been to so many other violations of the United Nations Charter," said Amnesty Secretary-General Agnes Calamar, as she presented the group's world report in Paris.
The Russian attack, which began on February 24, 2022, "gave us an all-too-rare glimpse of what is possible when there is the political will to act," as the West closed ranks to support Ukraine, she added.
After the invasion, many countries imposed sanctions on Moscow and opened their borders to Ukrainian refugees, and the International Criminal Court launched an investigation into war crimes in Ukraine.
Amnesty said the conflict highlighted shortcomings in the response to rights abuses in other parts of the world.
Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt...
He pointed out "the deafening silence of the West on the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia, the inaction towards Egypt and the refusal to confront the Israeli system of apartheid against the Palestinians".
Amnesty and other human rights watchdogs - Human Rights Watch and the UN Special Rapporteur - have concluded that Israel's treatment of Palestinians constitutes apartheid - the segregation of blacks and whites in white-ruled South Africa, a charge the Israeli state denies.
Last year, "successive Israeli governments introduced measures driving more and more Palestinians from their homes, expanding illegal settlements and legalizing existing settlements and outposts across the occupied West Bank," Amnesty said.
But despite this and Israeli forces killing Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, Western nations have not demanded an end to that "system of oppression," it said.
In Saudi Arabia, human rights activists continued to languish in prisons, people were imprisoned for their opinions after "very unfair trials", 81 men were executed in one day and migrants died in detention.
In Egypt, the group said, thousands of human rights defenders, journalists, protesters and alleged dissidents remain behind bars and "torture remains widespread."
European countries that accepted Ukrainian refugees did not show the same kindness to those from Syria and Afghanistan
While European countries have accepted Ukrainian refugees, they have not shown the same kindness to people fleeing fighting in Syria, Afghanistan and Libya, Amnesty said.
The United States also welcomed the Ukrainians, but "yet, under policies and practices rooted in anti-Black racism, expelled more than 25.000 Haitians between September 2021 and May 2022, subjecting many to torture and other ill-treatment," the group said.
In Iran, "women were dying for dancing, for singing, for not wearing a veil," as people rose up against the country's Islamic system, Kalamar said.
Amnesty also highlighted the failure of global institutions "to adequately respond to conflicts that have killed thousands of people, including in Ethiopia, Myanmar and Yemen".
The war in Ukraine "has diverted resources and attention from the climate crisis, other protracted conflicts and human suffering around the world," Amnesty said.
"In 2022, there was no evidence that the international response to the Ukraine crisis would become a template for consistent and coherent responses to conflicts and crises," Kalamar said.
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