“I resign from Amnesty International in Ukraine”said Ms. Pokaltchouk in a statement on her Facebook page overnight from Friday to Saturday, accusing the report published on August 4 of having unknowingly served “Russian propaganda”.
Amnesty said on Friday that it fully embraces its report accusing the Ukrainian military of endangering civilians in its resistance to the Russian invasion by setting up military infrastructure in populated areas.
The previous day’s publication of the document had aroused the ire of Kyiv. President Volodymyr Zelensky even accused the NGO of “attempt to grant amnesty to terrorist state” russian put “the victim and the aggressor somehow on an equal footing.”
“If you don’t live in a country invaded by occupiers who are dividing it up, you probably don’t understand what it means to condemn an army of defenders”added the head of Amnesty Ukraine.
He said that he tried to convince Amnesty International management that the report was biased and did not take into account the views of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry.
According to her, Amnesty finally “sent a request to the Ministry of Defense” but he has “given too little time for a response”. “Therefore, the organization unknowingly published a report that seemed to unknowingly support the Russian version. In an effort to protect civilians, this report became a Russian propaganda tool.”he laments.
In an earlier Facebook post, Ms Pokaltchouk claimed that Amnesty had ignored calls from her team not to publish the report. “Yesterday I had the naive hope that everything could be fixed and that this text would be replaced by another. But today I realized that it would not happen.she adds.
On Friday, the secretary general of the NGO, Agnès Callamard, assured that the conclusions of the report were “based on evidence obtained from extensive investigations subject to the same rigorous standards and investigative process as all of Amnesty International’s work”.
In its report following a four-month investigation, Amnesty accused the Ukrainian military of setting up military bases in schools and hospitals and launching attacks from populated areas, a tactic it said violates international humanitarian law.
Source: Nice Matin
