•         Amnesty International research verifies violations in international humanitarian law

•         Russian attacks could constitute war crimes

•         Russian claims to use precision guided weapons are patently false

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been marked by indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas and strikes on protected objects such as hospitals, Amnesty International said today, after documenting three incidents that it believes to have killed at least six civilians and injured at least 12 more. Indiscriminate attacks violate international humanitarian law (the laws of war) and can constitute war crimes. 

“The Russian military has shown a blatant disregard for civilian lives by using ballistic missiles and other explosive weapons with wide area effects in densely populated areas. Some of these attacks may be war crimes. The Russian government, which falsely claims to use only precision-guided weapons, should take responsibility for these acts,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.

The Russian military has shown a blatant disregard for civilian lives by using ballistic missiles and other explosive weapons with wide area effects in densely populated areas

Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General

“The Russian troops should immediately stop carrying out indiscriminate attacks in violation of the laws of war. The continuation of the use of ballistic missiles and other inaccurate explosive weapons causing civilian deaths and injuries is inexcusable.”

Indiscriminate attacks

Amnesty International’s Crisis Evidence Lab analyzed digital evidence—including photos, videos and satellite imagery— of three such attacks carried out in the early hours of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February. The attacks occurred in Vuhledar, Kharkiv and Uman.

Amnesty International’s Crisis Evidence Lab analyzed digital evidence—including photos, videos and satellite imagery— of three such attacks carried out in the early hours of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February

In the deadliest strike documented by Amnesty International, at approximately 10.30 am local time, a ballistic missile struck near a hospital building in Vuhledar, in Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, killing four civilians and wounding ten more. According to a local source who spoke to Amnesty International researchers, two women and two men were killed, and six healthcare workers were among the injured. Analyzing photos of the weapon scrap linked to the incident, Amnesty International’s weapons investigator determined that a 9M79 Tochka ballistic missile was used in the attack. These weapons are extremely inaccurate, regularly missing their targets by half a kilometre or more and should never be used in populated areas.

Another of the attacks was carried out at approximately 8 am local time, in the Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine. The likely target was the nearby Chuhuiv Air Base, but instead Russian weapon struck a residential block, causing extensive fire damage and apparently killing at least one male civilian and injuring at least two civilian women. A single large crater in the ground between apartment buildings indicates the weapon was most likely a single large missile or rocket.

In another attack occurring at 7 am on the 24 February in Uman, Cherkasy region, a civilian man appears to have been killed by a strike that also damaged a nearby restaurant.

UN General Assembly must hold an emergency meeting

If the Security Council is paralyzed through veto, it is up to the entire membership to step up

Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General

Amnesty International’s verification of the use of indiscriminate attacks by the Russian forces in their military operations in Ukraine, provides irrefutable evidence of violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law.

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is scheduled to meet later today to discuss the situation and Russia will most likely veto any resolution put forward by other member states. Therefore, Amnesty International is calling for an emergency meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. 

“If the Security Council is paralyzed through veto, it is up to the entire membership to step up,” said Agnès Callamard.

“We call on the UN General Assembly to meet in an emergency session and adopt a resolution denouncing Russia unlawful attack and calling for an end to all violations of humanitarian law and human rights. The lives, safety and well-being of millions of civilians is at stake.”

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Olympic champion Nils van der Poel has set an example to world leaders by giving away his Beijing 2022 gold medal in protest at human rights violations in China.

The Swedish athlete handed the men’s 10,000m speed skating medal he won at this month’s Games to Angela Gui, whose father Gui Minhai is a bookseller imprisoned in China on unsubstantiated “spying” charges.

“Nils van der Poel was a sporting champion at the Olympics, and today he is a champion of human rights. His brave decision to take a stand against China’s crackdown on freedom of expression should spur governments into action on this urgent issue,” said Alkan Akad, Amnesty International’s China Researcher.

“While China uses the Olympic and Paralympic Games to burnish its global image, millions suffer from its human rights violations: the Uyghurs held in internment camps; the sexual abuse survivors targeted for speaking up; or those like Gui Minhai who have been jailed simply for advocating views the government does not like.”

Gui Minhai is one of five Hong Kong–based publishers and booksellers who disappeared in late 2015 after publishing books critical of the Chinese government. He was later sentenced to 10 years in prison after a secretive, unfair trial.

He is among hundreds of writers, lawyers, activists and academics who have been targeted as part of the Chinese government’s long-running campaign to crush all forms of dissent.

Van der Poel’s donation of the gold medal – one of two he won at the Winter Olympics – comes five days after the Games’ closing ceremony, and ahead of the Beijing 2022 Paralympics which begin on 4 March.

“I am not the voice of all Olympians, but me and my friends dedicated our lives to strive for excellence within sports, and the Chinese government chose to use our dreams as a political weapon to legitimize their regime. To me that was personal, and I felt exploited,” van der Poel told Amnesty International.

“I wish for the human rights issues in China to improve and for Gui Minhai to be set free. It’s a lot to ask but it is the only reasonable thing to ask.”

Angela Gui was born in Sweden after Gui Minhai left China for Scandinavia following the Tiananmen crackdown in June 1989, later becoming a Swedish citizen.

She has campaigned tirelessly for her father’s release and says she has faced intimidation from Chinese state agents in an attempt to silence her.

“I would of course have preferred a situation in which doing this wasn’t necessary in the first place. But it feels important to me that this medal represents solidarity with political prisoners like my father, and the countless other victims of Beijing’s human rights violations,” Angela Gui told Amnesty International.

Who is Gui Minhai?

Gui Minhai’s Causeway Bay Bookstore was known for its books on Chinese leaders and political scandals which are banned in mainland China but popular with mainland Chinese tourists visiting Hong Kong.

Having gone missing in Thailand in October 2015, he reappeared on Chinese state media in 2016 giving an apparently forced confession to a hit-and-run several years earlier.

“Governments across the world should follow Nils’ lead by stepping up efforts to hold the Chinese government to account – not just over the unjust prosecution of Gui Minhai, but over its treatment of the many others jailed solely for peacefully exercising their rights.”

Alkan Akad, Amnesty International

He was released in 2017 but appears to have been under tight police surveillance, with his freedom of movement curtailed. He was seized by plainclothes police while travelling from Shanghai to Beijing for medical reasons with two Swedish diplomats in January 2018. 

In February 2020, he was jailed for 10 years on trumped-up charges of “illegally providing intelligence to foreign entities”.

“China’s system of censorship and punishment may have stifled human rights debate during the Games, but this powerful gesture sends a galvanizing message that the Chinese government’s shameful persecution of its peaceful critics will not be tolerated,” Alkan Akad said.

“Governments across the world should follow Nils’ lead by stepping up efforts to hold the Chinese government to account – not just over the unjust prosecution of Gui Minhai, but over its treatment of the many others jailed solely for peacefully exercising their rights.”

Background

In China, dissidents including writers, academics and journalists are systematically subjected to monitoring, harassment, intimidation, unlawful arrest and detention. Those targeted include five individuals featured in Amnesty International’s Beijing Olympics ‘Free the Five’ campaign:

Prominent human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng has been missing since 13 August 2017 after publishing a memoir detailing the torture and other ill-treatment he experienced while in detention from 2009 to 2014.

Lawyer-turned-journalist Zhang Zhang is currently in prison for “picking quarrels and provoking troubles” after reporting on Covid-19 in Wuhan at the beginning of the pandemic.

Tibetan Monk Rinchen Tsultrim was sentenced to four years and six months in prison for expressing views critical of government policies.

Uyghur academic Ilham Tothi was sentenced to life imprisonment for suggesting constructive approaches to overcome unequal treatment of ethnic groups in China.

Feminist activist Li Qiaochu has been detained for reporting torture allegedly committed by the Chinese authorities.

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An event reconstruction by SITU Research and Amnesty International details how Colombian security forces assaulted peaceful protesters in the Siloé neighbourhood of the city of Cali on 3 May. In the midst of this violence, three young people were shot and killed.

“Our meticulous digital reconstruction of the events in Siloé reveals how the Colombian security forces intentionally attacked people who were demonstrating peacefully in order to punish, injure and kill them. Crucially, through the large volume of data that we synthesized, we were able to show that the police did not face an imminent threat of violence, and that their use of lethal weapons was unjustified. The toll of their excessive use of force was the lives of Kevin Agudelo and two other young men,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International.

Amnesty International’s Crisis Evidence Lab and SITU Research analysed more than 200 pieces of audiovisual material and interviewed multiple witnesses to verify details about “Operation Siloé”. This joint incursion by members of the National Police, the Mobile Anti-Riot Squad (ESMAD) and the Special Operations Group of the Colombian National Police (GOES) targeted people taking part in a vigil at the La Glorieta roundabout in the Siloé neighbourhood. That night, several people were arbitrarily detained and hundreds were injured, with three people dying of gunshot wounds, including Kevin Agudelo, a promising 22-year-old football player.

“Each video and witness testimony recounts a unique perspective of the night. Some describe communal moments of remembrance, others show chaotic scenes of weapons deployed from seemingly all directions, yet others capture the bloody injuries of protesters carried away to receive treatment. When aggregated in time and space, these experiences build a synthesized picture of what unfolded on May 3: a carefully orchestrated assault on a peaceful vigil,” said Bora Erden, Senior Researcher at SITU Research.

Amnesty International found evidence indicating that live ammunition was used against protesters, such as photos of shell casings, bullet holes and the sound of gunfire. The organization verified videos taken prior to the attack and was able to determine that there were police officers present close to where Kevin died and that they were firing 5.56mm Tavor rifles. The evidence shows that there was no imminent threat of violence that could not reasonably have been addressed by the security forces with more proportionate measures.

Our meticulous digital reconstruction of the events in Siloé reveals how the Colombian security forces intentionally attacked people who were demonstrating peacefully in order to punish, injure and kill them

Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International

“We didn’t have any kind of protection and we couldn’t get away before the gunshots and tear gas started streaming out from different directions… it was excessive, we were not armed nor did we have any way to respond to that arsenal… they used rifles that are used in war, the only thing we could do was run for our lives, Kevin was with us,” a witness told Amnesty International.

Amnesty International’s Digital Verification Corps confirmed the presence of two helicopters in the area, while witnesses described the unlawful and excessive deployment of tear gas using Venom, a weapons system whose prescribed use is to disperse a violent crowd. Since the security forces used it at night, from above, and on peaceful protesters who did not know where to disperse, its use was unjustified and inappropriate. Rather than a legitimate attempt to restore public order, using tear gas in this way indicates the intention to facilitate a military attack.

“The security forces were aware of the deadly capability of their weapons and yet they fired at will in a place where there were young people, children and adults who had to run for their lives. The launch of an operation of this magnitude, as if it were a confrontation with armed actors and not a peaceful protest, is indicative of the warlike nature of the response to the protests related to the national strike in Cali”, said Erika Guevara-Rosas.

“We hope that the Attorney General’s Office will make advances in the investigation into the death of Kevin Agudelo and the other serious human rights violations committed during Operation Siloé and, if there is sufficient and admissible evidence against those suspected of criminal responsibility, bring them to justice in a fair trial before ordinary civilian courts. This is the first step towards building a Colombia where human rights are respected; it is imperative that impunity does not prevail for these serious crimes.”

Additional information:

Amnesty International has documented extensively the repressive actions of the National Police in the context of the 2021 National Strike, including excessive use of force, disappearances and sexual violence against protesters, and attacks against Indigenous peoples.

In the report Cali: In the Epicenter of Repression published last July, Amnesty International documented unlawful repression, urban paramilitarism, unlawful detention and torture of peaceful protesters and pointed to the real goals behind this repression: to instil fear, discourage peaceful protest and ultimately punish those demanding change in the country.

In November, together with the local organizations Temblores and PAIIS, Amnesty International published another report, Shoot on sight, which documented the cases of 13 victims of eye trauma and analysed more than 300 pieces of audiovisual material on the disproportionate and repressive actions of ESMAD between 28 April and 20 October.

For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact Duncan Tucker: duncan.tucker@amnesty.org

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Introduction

Throughout the 2021 National Strike, Colombia witnessed mass demonstrations across the country. The protests made visible the historical claims of marginalized populations in the country.  Inequality, racism, violence and the consequences of the internal armed conflict were key structural causes of the social explosion.

The demands of protesters reflect broad social grievances based on the state’s failure to guarantee basic economic and social rights such as education and health, as well as failure of the state to implement measures to mitigate the effects of the pandemic, in one of the most unequal countries in the region.

Instead of listening to the demands of the thousands of people who demonstrated, the government of Iván Duque responded with repression and violence to discourage the peaceful protests and ultimately to punish those who were demanding change in the country.

Who was punished for speaking up?

Repression and Violence in the city of Cali: Kevin Agudelo 

The gravest violations committed by the security forces during this period were concentrated in the city of Cali. In collaboration with SITU Research, Amnesty International reconstructed the violent incursion called “Operation Siloé” that took place on May 3rd, when National Police officers, in conjunction with agents of the Mobile Anti-Riot Squad (ESMAD) and the Special Operations Group of the Colombian National Police (GOES), used lethal weapons, such as Tavor 5.56 mm rifles, against peaceful protestors.

At least three people were killed that night from gunshot wounds, including Kevin Agudelo, a young amateur football player with Siloé FC, hundreds of people were injured and many were arbitrarily detained. The reconstruction uses more than 200 audiovisual assets analysed by Amnesty International’s Crisis Evidence Lab and SITU Research, as well as witness testimony to verify and illustrate the details of the incursion and the events leading to Kevin’s death.

Arm yourself with your dreams so you don’t lose your sight

Gareth Sella: The consequences of the stigmatization of protest.

Gareth Sella is a young 24-year-old filmmaker who is recognized for his human rights activism and his critical stance on police violence, which he transmits through his work in the production company La Resistencia.

On 24 February 2021, within the framework of the National Week against Police Brutality, convened by victims’ organizations, in which dozens of demonstrators called for the dissolution of the ESMAD and protested against repression and impunity, Gareth along with his colleagues “Escudos Azules” a collective that aims to ensure that social protest is carried out in a peaceful manner and to that end, they act as mediators between protesters and the police, went out to march peacefully, days before senior public officials had made stigmatizing statements of those who demonstrated.

On 22 February 2021, the Criminal Analysis Center of the Criminal Investigation Directorate (DIJIN) of the National Police, issued an alert entitled “Call for violent social mobilization 24 February-24F” and the convening groups were classified as “radical”, including the Blue Shields collective.

On 24 February, Gareth was hit in the face by an artifact that, according to his statement and that of several witnesses, was launched at close range by an agent of the mobile anti-riot Squad, the consequence of this impact was the partial loss of sight. Despite facing the wounds and damage caused, his desire to fight impunity is stronger. His public statements are powerful and reflect the story of a young artist who was injured by ESMAD agents, in retaliation for his activism and with the intention of inflicting pain and silencing his voice

© vmly&r / Amnesty International

Leidy Cadena: The price of being a young woman and raising your voice.

Leidy is a young student of political science, passionate about human rights and photography. Together with her partner and hundreds of Colombian people who wanted a change in the country, she went out to march. Once the protest turned violent due to the presence of the ESMAD, Leidy and others tried to return home. While they were going for their bicycles, an ESMAD agent shot Leidy directly and she  lost the sight of her right eye.

“I lost my eye but I swear I feel like I have ten thousand out there, let’s keep fighting that this doesn’t end here (…) I think it is very nice to be able to tell people that yes we can, that we can get out of these things and that, although it is very sad and painful, we have to go ahead and show the country that we are still here ready to fight”.

Due to her fight against impunity and her search for justice, Leidy received death threats, as a result of which she had to leave Colombia and seek asylum abroad.

They took away an eye, but we still have our voice

© vmly&r / Amnesty International

Repression and violence against those who hope for a better future in Colombia MUST stop!

• The Colombian president and congress must take action to prevent the excessive use of force against peaceful protesters, initiating the process of police reform. 
• The mayors of the cities of Bogotá, Popayán, Cali, Manizales and Medellín must put forward clear plans of actions for victims of illegal repression and violence that include prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and pyscho-social care.
• Ordinary civilian courts must investigate agents suspected of criminal responsibility in fair proceedings. The investigation must include all chain of command responsibilities within the state authorities.
• The prosecutor's office should refrain from referring cases of possible human rights violations in the context of social protest to the military justice system. All cases should be handled by a specialized human rights unit and prosecutors with the proper training.

Download our reports

In the epicenter of repression: Human rights violations during the 2021 national strike in Cali, Colombia.

DOWNLOAD REPORT

Colombia: Shoots on sight: eye trauma in the context of the National Strike.

DOWNLOAD REPORT

The post Repression in the spotlight appeared first on Amnesty International.

An investigation by the EU’s independent oversight body has found that the European Commission (EC) failed to ensure that fundamental human rights were respected in EU-funded border operations by Croatian authorities since 2018. During that time, widespread abuses against migrants and asylum seekers by Croatian border guards have been documented, including people being bound, brutally beaten and tortured.

“The European Commission financed Croatia’s border operations, including the salaries of border guards who are notorious for violent treatment of migrants and asylum-seekers, and yet it turned a blind eye to abuses. The Ombudsman has made it clear that the Commission must ensure that EU funds do not support operations that violate human rights” said Eve Geddie, Director of Amnesty International’s EU Office.

The Ombudsman found that the fact that a mechanism for monitoring human rights in Croatia was only established in the summer of 2021, while the European Commission funded ‘emergency’ border control operations since 2018 created confusion and was “regrettable”.

“As Amnesty and other warned, the mechanism for monitoring rights violations in Croatia is not independent nor effective and cannot serve as a credible watchdog without significant improvements. Its first report, issued in December, which found that Croatian police ‘acted illegally by returning migrants from Croatia to Bosnia and Herzegovina outside of the framework of international or national law’, was quickly retracted and replaced with a new version which scrubbed all references pointing to any wrongdoing by the Croatian authorities,” said Eve Geddie.

“Too many people have borne the brunt of the Croatian authorities’ border violence, and the European Commission’s lamentable failure to prevent and ensure accountability for it. We expect the Commission to ensure that the mechanism put in place in Croatia with EU assistance is given a broader mandate to effectively monitor and investigate the violations and freed from undue political influence.”

Eve Geddie

In her conclusion, the Ombudsman requested that the EC take a more active role in overseeing the work of the monitoring mechanism to ensure its independence and efficacy and demand from Croatia concrete and verifiable information on steps taken to investigate the reports of collective expulsions and mistreatment of migrants and asylum-seekers. 

“The Commission must ensure that EU-funded border-related operations comply with EU law, not just in Croatia, but at all EU borders,” said Eve Geddie.

For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact:      

Alison Abrahams on alison.abrahams@amnesty.org or +32 483 680 812      

Out of hours contact details      

+44 20 7413 5566      

email: press@amnesty.org       

twitter: @amnestypress     

Background 

Croatia is a beneficiary of more than 108 million EURO under EU’s Asylum Migration and International Fund (AMIF) and has received an additional 46 million EURO in emergency assistance for migration and border management since 2017.

In December, the Council of Europe’s Committee against Torture confirmed that Croatian authorities have assaulted refugees and migrants and denied them access to asylum. They also criticised the authorities for failing to conduct thorough and timely investigations into complaints of police misconduct.

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