Amnesty International is to probe its own report on so-called war crimes by Kyiv after backlash over accusations against Ukraine
- Human rights organisation announced the move yesterday
- Move comes amid growing backlash over decision to publish contentious report
- Report argues that Kyiv’s stationing of troops ‘violated international law’
- Follows resignations by senior supporters and staff over the document
Amnesty International is to hold a formal inquiry into whether it falsely accused Ukraine of war crimes.
The human rights organisation announced the move yesterday, amid a growing backlash over its decision to publish a highly-contentious report arguing that Kyiv was stationing troops in towns and cities in a way that ‘violates international law’.
It follows resignations by senior staff and supporters concerned that the document, released this month, is being used to justify Russian attacks on schools and hospitals.
A team of ‘external reviewers’ will examine claims by legal experts that the controversial report contained basic errors and misinterpreted rules on armed conflict.
The human rights organisation announced the move yesterday, amid a growing backlash over its decision to publish a highly-contentious report arguing that Kyiv was stationing troops in towns and cities in a way that ‘violates international law’. Pictured: Ukrainian soldiers on the frontline in Donbass
Pictured: Monday’s Daily Mail piece about Amnesty International after growing backlash over the report
A team of ‘external reviewers’ will examine claims by legal experts that the controversial report contained basic errors and misinterpreted rules on armed conflict. Pictured: Protesters in Sydney on 16 August after the report was published
They are also expected to probe allegations that its author, Donatella Rovera, gave Ukraine’s defence officials insufficient time to respond to her findings.
‘Amnesty International will be conducting an in-depth, comprehensive review of the process leading up to the publication of the press release about violations of international humanitarian law by Ukrainian forces,’ Amnesty said.
The report’s findings may threaten the future of Amnesty’s £220,000-a-year secretary general, Agnes Callamard, who not only played a key role in greenlighting and then promoting the report, but also used Twitter to label critics of its findings as ‘social media mobs and trolls’.
Controversy has been raging for almost two weeks over her claim in the document that Ukrainian military leaders seeking to defend urban areas have been ‘violating the rules of warfare by in effect using their citizens as human shields’.
In fact, critics argue, Kyiv has little choice but to station soldiers in towns and cities if it wishes to prevent invaders from over-running them. Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Amnesty of trying to ‘shift responsibility from the aggressor to the victim’.
The Mail revealed this week that war correspondents were concerned the report’s author, Miss Rovera, did not understand rules on armed conflict in urban areas.
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