Dr. Bahaa Helmy Writes: Amnesty International Is Not Neutral

Amnesty International is run through an International Secretariat based in London, and the organization has two entities: Amnesty International Limited, a company, and the Amnesty International Charity in England and Wales. It is unclear who the founding partners of the said company are. The organization's mission is based on preventing human rights violations and ensuring compliance with international standards and laws, and on mobilizing public opinion to pressure governments that violate these rights. It aims to stop violence against women and to resist terrorism and torture, it is concerned with the rights of refugees, it calls for the abolition of the death penalty, and it received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977. Among the organization's most prominent principles is that it is neutral in nature and independent of governments, political ideologies, economic interests and religious beliefs, and that it is funded by donations from its members and supporters. Amnesty International believes that this independence gives great weight to the accuracy and balance of its reports, that all its reports are based on research verified by its International Secretariat in London, and it expresses its belief in, and ability to, correct errors if they are proven to have occurred in the information it issues. Reality, however, indicates that Amnesty International violates international human rights standards, is not neutral, violates the principles on which it was founded, and serves as a cover for the Nusra Front, with a blatant defense of terrorism, in addition to practicing discrimination between human beings. We will address some of the facts and evidence that prove this by reviewing two subjects: first, the Amnesty International report issued in March on the occasion of the Egyptian judiciary's rulings against some terrorists; and second, the indicators of the discrimination it openly practices against the rights of Egyptian victims of terrorism on its website under the name of Islamophobia. The Amnesty International report was issued in March 2020 commenting on death sentences against 37 convicts, and the organization acknowledged that these sentences were against people who had committed serious crimes and deadly attacks. However, it expressed its grave concern about the trial on the basis of what was contained in a report by “the Egyptian Front for Human Rights” of statements by some of the defendants that they had been subjected to enforced disappearance and torture. It should be noted that the convicted terrorists carried out more than 54 terrorist attacks that led to the martyrdom of many officers and citizens, the attempted bombing of the Dakahlia Security Directorate, the assassination of the Minister of Interior, the bombing of the Cairo Security Directorate and other attacks claimed by the group Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, which pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) and called itself Sinai Province in 2014. On examining the Amnesty International report, it emerged that it relies on unverified information issued by a fictitious body called the Egyptian Front for Human Rights, whose address is Kounicova Street in the city of Brno in the Czech Republic.
