Amnesty says West’s Ukraine response exposes ‘double standards’
- Amnesty International’s Annual Report for 2022 highlights double standards throughout the world on human rights
- Western states have been ignoring ‘Israel’s abuses of apartheid against Palestinians’, human rights violations in Saudi Arabia, report says
Global outrage over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year has only served to expose the West’s “double standards” towards human rights abuses throughout the world, Amnesty International said on Tuesday.
In its annual world report for 2022, Amnesty pointed to what it described as the West’s silence on Saudi Arabia’s rights record, repression in Egypt and Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.
“The West’s formidable response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine underscored double standards, exposing in comparison how inconsequential their reactions have been to so many other violations of the UN Charter,” said Amnesty secretary general Agnes Callamard as she presented the group’s world report in Paris.
Russia’s assault that began on February 24, 2022 “gave us an all too rare view of what becomes possible when there is political will to act” as the West closed ranks to support Ukraine, she added.
Many countries imposed sanctions on Moscow and opened their borders to Ukrainian refugees after the invasion, while the International Criminal Court launched an investigation into war crimes in Ukraine.
But Amnesty said the conflict had highlighted shortcomings in responding to abuses in other parts of the globe.