After criticism
Amnesty wants to work through the origins of the Ukraine report
Amnesty International logo. photo
© Britta Pedersen/dpa-Zentralbild/dpa
The accusation weighed heavily: the Ukrainian army is said to be deliberately endangering civilians. Anmesty’s report drew harsh criticism. Now the organization wants to clarify the background.
After severe criticism of its report on the Ukrainian army’s conduct of the war, the human rights organization Amnesty International wants to review the process of its creation. A thorough examination of the process will be carried out by external experts, according to a statement by the organization made available to the German Press Agency on Saturday. The results of this examination are of great urgency.
In the coming week, Amnesty’s board of directors will determine the details of the process after the various national organizations have been able to give their input – including the Ukrainian Amnesty organization, whose head Oxanna Pokaltschuk resigned in protest at the report.
Kyiv criticizes “perpetrator-victim reversal”
In the report, Amnesty International accused the Ukrainian army of entrenching itself in residential areas, thereby unnecessarily endangering civilians. Kyiv criticized that the non-governmental organization had operated a perpetrator-victim reversal by focusing on misconduct by the army of the attacked country. Critics also partially questioned the report’s methodology. Amnesty’s report on violations by the Ukrainian army was extensively covered in Russia’s state media, which hardly reported on alleged crimes committed by Russian soldiers in Ukraine. Amnesty International continued to defend the report but expressed regret at the “pain and anger” it had caused.
Amnesty’s German branch said the results “were not communicated with the sensitivity and precision” that the organization should expect. “This also applies to the subsequent communication and reaction of the International Secretariat to the public criticism.” The organization wrote in a statement on Friday that they wanted to be closely involved in the processing, in which power relations would also have to be taken into account. “We want to understand what exactly went wrong and why, so that we can learn from it and improve our human rights work.”
Facebook message Pokaltschuk Message from Amnesty Germany