On May 17, Amnesty’s international headquarters confirmed what Corriere had immediately claimed: that the allegations made by the NGO in August against the Ukrainian army for “endangering civilians” and thereby “violating international law” were real. But only yesterday, at the urging of Il Foglio, the Italian Amnesty headquarters re-published this official reversal on its website. The independent report by the Expert Commission, published in April, was followed by an admission of error, according to which Amnesty’s allegations were not sufficiently substantiated by the evidence collected.
On August 4, 2022, the NGO released a statement accusing the Ukrainian armed forces of endangering the lives of civilians, turning them into military targets, and thereby violating international humanitarian law. The denunciation, used by Russia to expose Ukraine’s “crimes” against its own civilian population, sparked a sharp reaction in Kiev and also sparked an internal earthquake within the NGO when the head of Amnesty Ukraine resigned in protest.
While Amnesty Italy promptly translated and disclosed this text of the allegations to the Ukrainian Armed Forces last August, it delayed the re-release of the document with apologies and retractions. “There was no embarrassment or resistance on our part when we disclosed Amnesty International’s reaction to the report by independent experts in Italy,” NGO spokesman Riccardo Noury assured Corriere. “The delay is only due to a technical issue: on May 17th we were about to publish the report on the death penalty.” Also on May 17th we received 7 press releases from the parent company and selected two more for translation. I am responsible for the delay, based on the reactions it would have been appropriate to let him go first. In any case, on April 28th we reported almost in real time on the publication of the independent report of the Expert Commission.”
However, this report was not translated and was only published in the press release at the end of August. Why wasn’t it translated and given the meaning it deserved?
“It’s an 18-page document, we don’t have the resources to translate everything.” However, we placed it at the end of the most visited document,” Noury replies.
On April 27, it was the New York Times that unveiled the findings of the investigation by Amnesty’s own independent commission of experts into international humanitarian law: the report revealed huge limitations in the investigation of the NGO. After the New York Times scoop, Amnesty was forced to publish the dossier the next day.
On May 17, Amnesty International published a text that also describes how internal processes and “the way we work” can be improved, given the flaws in the August 4 communiqué. With apologies. We translate the first few lines for you: “On behalf of the International Council, I sincerely apologize for the heartache and anger caused by the August 4 press release,” writes Amnesty International Director Anjhula Mya Singh Bais, who has taken on the difficult task of reforming NGOs by learning from mistakes.