Konflikten i Syrien

"One would like to ask Amnesty International whether it plans to take up the issue of human rights violations by the US government in Iraq or in Guantanamo Bay at the Super Bowl match or the National Basketball League championship,"

Amnesty criticized Israel's blockade on Gaza without mentioning that the blockade was in place "to stop the smuggling of weapons and rockets used to target Israeli citizens." NGO Monitor continued and said that "UN Secretary General’s Palmer Committee declared in September 2011 that the blockade is legal under international law."

In February 2017, Amnesty International reported that between 5,000 and 13,000 prisoners had been tortured to death by the Syrian government at the Sednaya Prison between 2011 and 2016, describing it as a "Human Slaughterhouse", a claim that has been strenuously denied by the Syrian Government, who described the allegations as "false" and part of a wider smear campaign against the Government, while accusing Amnesty of lacking any credible evidence to make such a serious claim, and pointing out that 81 of the 84 witnesses that Amnesty used for the report came from anonymous sources. Amnesty were also accused severe bias in its reportage and of trying the Syrian Government in a kangaroo court.

During the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, Israel-based British journalist Jonathan Cook said that HRW's statements about the intentions of Israel and Hezbollah to target or avoid civilians unjustified by available evidence "[seemed to distort] its findings to placate the Israel lobby". According to Cook, "HRW is accusing Hezbollah of committing graver war crimes than Israel, even though it killed far fewer civilians both numerically and proportionally.

Amnesty International released a 48-page report on Feb. 6 to wide publicity and commentary from U.N. officials and U.S. politicians.

The report, explosively titled “Human Slaughterhouse: Mass Hangings and Extermination at Saydnaya Prison, Syria,” claims that attacks by the Syrian government on civilians are part of its systemic state policy.

The report has now been thoroughly debunked as fraud and calculated U.S. war propaganda. The Syria Solidarity Network forces in the Hands Off Syria Coalition and other antiwar researchers have exposed glaring fabrications.

But these exposés have received no coverage in the corporate media.

The impetus of antiwar forces to immediately scrutinize this latest report was based on the well-known role, at pivotal historical moments, of earlier AI and Human Rights Watch reports on Iraq, Libya, Yugoslavia, Iran, Sudan, Cuba and Venezuela. All too often these reports appear to be coordinated with U.S. war plans. They are quoted to justify U.S. plans to intensify sanctions or blockades.[ These war crime charges become the excuse for intervention and war against an entire population. In Iraq, Yugoslavia and Libya they became the justification for tearing down the entire government structure, its protective legislation and nationalized industry, and the kidnapping and execution of the top leadership.

The newest AI report was followed days later by a CNN news report that the U.S. Defense Department might be sending ground combat forces into northern Syria.

Its release also came after the Syrian government had made significant gains against the U.S.-orchestrated effort to overthrow it and less than two weeks before the next round of peace talks in Geneva. Is that a coincidence?

The role of these “human rights” reports raises a larger issue. Well-funded nongovernmental organizations play a major role in U.S. war plans. Although these NGOs claim to be “independent,” they are well-funded by imperialist governments through the U.S. Agency for International Development and the British Foreign Office. Foundations that represent powerful U.S. corporations, such as Ford, Rockefeller and Soros, are major donors.

Both AI and HRW assert that their reports are impartial, fact based, balanced to include testimony from both sides and that all sources are thoroughly checked and cross-checked. But the very title of the latest Syria report, with the words “slaughterhouse” and “extermination,” exposes the claim of impartiality as a lie.