By Hillel Neuer
Amnesty International had to have known Russia would weaponize their report on Ukraine to justify killing Ukrainian civilians. But the organization’s leaders are blinded by knee-jerk anti-Westernism, anti-Americanism and anti-NATO views, which they associate with Western-backed Ukraine. Amnesty’s moral compass is broken.
For some, this is a revelation. Not for others: over many years, we sounded the alarm as a once-mighty organization began to embrace terrorists, racists, homophobes, misogynists and antisemites.
⚡️ Tweet that destroyed an organization https://t.co/4zmLrbpBb8
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 8, 2022
No, Ms. Callamard, Russian trolls are not attacking your Amnesty International report, they are turning it into propaganda videos for their disinformation campaign.
⚡️🇷🇺 https://t.co/L1VTvRJsR5 https://t.co/S75WruHWWe— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 7, 2022
When I worked at Amnesty we took time on detailed reports putting events in context. Amnesty’s release on Ukraine today does not. The result suggests Ukraine bears more responsibility for people killed by Russian strikes than Russia itself. It is both bizarre and misleading.
— Maxim Tucker (@MaxRTucker) August 4, 2022
Amnesty's report endangers Ukrainian civilians. It emboldens Russia to attack civilian areas, blame 🇺🇦 and invoke the backing of an international human rights group. Last year, Amnesty stripped Alexei Navalny of his prisoner of conscience status. Their leaders should resign. Now. https://t.co/DthHcEMecb pic.twitter.com/nmUs0l98Sz
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 6, 2022
As if on cue, Russia's useful idiots in the West immediately use Amnesty's distorted report—which concluded “Ukrainian forces put civilians in harm’s way” (https://t.co/4zmLrbpBb8)—to enable Putin's war.
Amnesty international lost its moral compass and judgment long ago: 🧵 /1 https://t.co/oh3HP0669w
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 5, 2022
In 2010, Gita Sahgal, then head of Amnesty International's women's rights unit, was fired for exposing Amnesty's shameful ties and support for Britain's most famous Taliban advocate: former Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg. https://t.co/xr5czFd42p /3
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 5, 2022
Christopher Hitchens wrote that Amnesty’s actions backing the Taliban—and targeting whistleblower & women's rights chief Gita Sahgal—exemplified the organization’s “degeneration & politicization,” reflecting “a moral crisis that has global implications.”https://t.co/RlP5wpj6Sb /5
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 5, 2022
Amnesty backed the pro-Taliban group "Cage," which promotes an ideology that mocks the values of tolerance, especially towards women. Amnesty used Cage propaganda, shared logos with them, co-produced briefing papers & co-signed letters to the government.https://t.co/EpnQLbrern /7
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 5, 2022
In 2015 Amnesty justified hosting an anti-gay Holocaust denier to protest Islamophobia—due to “the significance of this issue” & as it “was not an endorsement of any of the views of the individual speaker.” Yet in 2018 they saw fit to ban London's Jews. /9 https://t.co/lS8iG9cMxz
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 5, 2022
That Amnesty's Agnes Callamard falsely denigrates legitimate critics isn't new, nor her organization's lack of a moral compass. She who made a moral equivalence between Nazi Germany and the city of Minneapolis will also conflate Putin with his victims. /11https://t.co/IPuzNirluv
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 5, 2022
Amnesty's leaders are unable to morally distinguish between democracies that have blots on the system and totalitarian regimes where the blot IS the system; nor between democracies that may err in defending themselves & terrorist attackers that deliberately target civilians. /13
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 5, 2022
Many think Amnesty is a neutral human rights organization. In fact, its leaders mix with hard-core Corbynite ideologues. Amnesty UK's longtime chef Kate Allen lived for 20 years with “Red Ken” Livingstone who defended Russia's 2008 invasion of Ukraine. /15https://t.co/8oPyDCEt5I pic.twitter.com/sje6zu0wUt
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 7, 2022
The entire Amnesty International Politburo must resign.
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 7, 2022
“The central command of a hard left NGO produced propaganda that owes more to ideology than fact. Amnesty is a worthless, morally bankrupt sham that gives succour to terrorist states. The sooner it collapses under the weight of its own distortions, the better.”
— @stephenpollard pic.twitter.com/8DPHTBHbHe— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 7, 2022
Russia was always targeting civilians in Ukraine. Now they will do so by invoking Amnesty International. @AgnesCallamard, does your organization once more have blood on its hands? https://t.co/L1VTvRJsR5
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 7, 2022
Ukraine "endangers civilians" by building cities in path of Russian invasion.
cc @amnesty pic.twitter.com/CJMCVM9oy1
— Darth Putin (@DarthPutinKGB) August 5, 2022
If Amnesty International had existed in the 1940s, there’s little doubt they would have been issuing reports about how the resistance and partisans were “endangering civilians.”
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 7, 2022
Both Russia and the Hamas terrorist organization love Amnesty Internationalhttps://t.co/ZLRrKi71OXhttps://t.co/2DlCRdC7UZ https://t.co/bXnxOiNLYe pic.twitter.com/cQnf7y6t0y
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 7, 2022
The Times of London on Amnesty International's Ukraine report: “A once-respected humanitarian campaign, Amnesty now evinces a deplorable indifference to oppression. Having shown itself soft on crime and soft on fascism, it should have the decency to depart the stage.” pic.twitter.com/dC3urVgdsi
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 7, 2022
The strangest thing about Amnesty International issuing a report accusing Ukraine of endangering its civilians is that this is the same organization which for the past two decades has consistently ignored or downplayed the actual deliberate use of human shields by Hamas in Gaza.
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 7, 2022
Watchdogs of “watchdogs” are sorely needed and one of the most brilliant people at this job has been @HillelNeuer, who has been documenting Amnesty’s gross misbehaviour for a long time.
— Matei Rosca (@mateirosca) August 7, 2022
⚡️ Roger Waters just endorsed the Chinese regime’s aggression against Taiwan.
Despite knowing of his anti-liberalism and antisemitism, Amnesty International invited Roger Waters to present its prestigious Ambassador of Conscience Award.
Amnesty’s moral compass broke long ago. https://t.co/6Dn61U10eb pic.twitter.com/HwSr0tUCkQ
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 8, 2022
As Amnesty International employees are saying off the record, their leadership had to know Russia would weaponize their report to justify killing Ukrainian civilians. The leaders of Amnesty International now have blood on their hands. They must resign. Now. https://t.co/oJhtxZF1UL
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 8, 2022
Amnesty International's Ukraine director Oksana Pokalchuk has resigned. She says Amnesty refused to listen to her in preparing its report, failed to give time for Kyiv to to respond, and became a tool of Russian propaganda.
RT if you think @agnescallamard should resign instead. https://t.co/S75WruHWWe pic.twitter.com/44FOcGzfZS
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 6, 2022
.@AgnesCallamard Ukrainians being bombed in their homes don't need your “regret for causing distress,” they need you to retract your distorted report—and resign—for having enabled Russia to cause many more Ukrainian deaths.https://t.co/Eyoc39RkqO
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 7, 2022
No joke: Agnes Callamard, the new head of Amnesty International, once declared that Arafat was murdered, the Israelis did it, and President Shimon Peres admitted this. All lies.
Note: Callamard was the U.N. Human Rights Council's “expert“ on assassinations. Not making this up. https://t.co/P5xzvylGqI pic.twitter.com/qpvc9ifi1L
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) April 11, 2021
Update: the Twitter accounts of Amnesty International & its chief Agnes Callamard are still silent on the stabbing and attempted murder of Salman Rushdie last Friday by an admirer of Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini whose call to murder Rushdie was reaffirmed by current leader Khamenei. pic.twitter.com/E0mcFXxQUt
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 18, 2022
Amnesty International was once asked why they refused to do a report on antisemitism.
Their reply:https://t.co/xb2h0woBJW
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 15, 2022
“It looks very much as if Amnesty's leadership is suffering from a kind of moral bankruptcy and has lost the ability to distinguish right from wrong.”
— Salman Rushdie, February 2010https://t.co/Esy5TwhUzJ pic.twitter.com/MmyyU3PFCB— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 15, 2022
Amnesty International is still silent on Salman Rushdie pic.twitter.com/gfOP7NzisT
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 15, 2022
BREAKING: 🇨🇦 Canadian branch of Amnesty International blasts leadership over Ukraine report which “failed on several fronts,” had “insufficient context and legal analysis, particularly given the nature of Russia’s aggression.”@AgnesCallamard, are these your “mobs and trolls”? https://t.co/S75WruHWWe pic.twitter.com/xdZaMwXj0d
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 12, 2022
The moral compass of Amnesty International is broken.
How a once-great human rights organization metamorphosed into a supporter of misogynists, homophobes, dictators and antisemites. 🧵:https://t.co/SQbZYCQNY4https://t.co/4zaI3THZDc
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 10, 2022
Bad week for Amnesty International & Roger Waters pic.twitter.com/AnlA2Zh8EY
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 7, 2022
Over the past month, Russia surrounded Ukraine with 150,000 soldiers, fighter jets, attack helicopters, artillery, rockets and warships.
During this time, @amnesty tweeted not one word on Russia or Ukraine.
Instead, their pinned tweet since Feb. 3rd is about attacking Israel. pic.twitter.com/bBxtM8ZrCy
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) February 22, 2022