Amnesty Int’l Decries Poor Response To Rights Abuses

Amnesty International (AI) says double standards and inadequate responses by global and regional institutions, including the UN Security Council and the African Union to human rights abuses fuelled impunity and instability in 2022.

The report released on Monday titled: “Amnesty International Report 2022/23: The State of the World’s Human Rights” stated that human rights abuses, killing of protesters worsened in Nigeria and other African Nations.

The report highlighted the effects of conflicts in many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa while blaming the failure of leadership and global organisations.

According to the report, journalists, human rights defenders and political opposition in Africa faced repression, including in Cameroon, Ethiopia, Eswatini, Guinea, Mali, Mozambique, Senegal and Zimbabwe.

The report said, “The deaths of scores of protesters were reported and attributed to excessive use of force by security forces in Nigeria, Chad, DRC, Guinea, Kenya, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia and Sudan, among other countries.”

The report also highlighted that the failure of global and regional institutions, including the UN Security Council and the African Union, to respond adequately to crimes committed under international law in countries like China, Myanmar and Yemen, as well as on the African continent, including in Ethiopia, Burkina Faso and South Sudan contributed to the problem.

It also showed that recovery efforts from the COVID-19 pandemic were hindered by conflicts, economic shocks arising from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and extreme weather conditions exacerbated by climate change.