“We are moving further and further towards total disregard for human lives,” deplores Jean-Claude Samouiller, president of Amnesty France, at the conference launching the 2023 report on the situation of human rights in the world. NGOs. If the treatment of civilians in wars was already a concern in 2022, the report highlights that 2023 was a year marked by “the near collapse of international law” and “the multiplication of conflicts” where “populations [were] systematically massacred.” The war in the Middle East is the most telling example: the majority of victims of the October 7 massacres were civilians, and more than 34,000 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli response, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.
However, even before October 7, “2023 was the deadliest year for Palestinians since 2005” (the year Amnesty International began its documentation on this issue), recalls Budour Hassan, the organization’s researcher on Israel and occupied Palestinian territories. The NGO points to the responsibility of the Israeli authorities, accused of “emptying international law of its meaning”. Israel’s allies are also blamed, first and foremost the United States, whose veto in the UN Security Council has repeatedly prevented the establishment of a ceasefire in Gaza. More generally, the organization criticizes the passivity of the international community and recalls that many countries have, for a long time, not condemned Israel’s actions, a sign of a “grotesque double standard” in the face of the sanctions taken against the Russian regime for the war in Ukraine.
Moscow, however, is not left out. The report also denounces violations of international law by Russia, which has allowed its army to “commit war crimes with impunity” while tightening censorship within its borders. In Burma, civilians have also paid a heavy price. Bombings by the regular army have caused the death of more than 4,000 people since the 2021 coup. In Sudan, the situation has also deteriorated with the outbreak of a new conflict where 14,700 Sudanese are believed to have died, according to a report which would be much lower than reality. Another common point of these wars: sexual violence used as “weapons of war”. In general, women’s rights have deteriorated in several countries, such as in Afghanistan, where they are gradually disappearing from public life.
Technologies are also in the sights of the NGO, which criticizes the insufficiency, or even absence, of regulation on the issue, starting with artificial intelligence (AI). This changes the scale of population surveillance, as shown by its use by several countries. In the West Bank, facial recognition has been used by Israel to restrict movement and reinforce a system described as “apartheid” by Amnesty. France is also singled out in the report for a 2023 law which authorized the use by law enforcement of mass video surveillance assisted by AI for the 2024 Olympic Games. Nathalie Godard, director of Action at Amnesty, denounces “an erosion of rights in France”, decrying in particular the excessive use of force by the police and racial checks.
Amnesty International is concerned about the proliferation of spyware, on which few countries have legislated. Systems that often target journalists and human rights activists, as was the case with Pegasus in 2023, software from the Israeli company NSO Group, which continued to be used in India, the Dominican Republic, Armenia and Serbia. In general, “technology platforms have become political battlefields,” says the report.
Disinformation on social networks is also a source of concern for the NGO, especially since 2024 is a year punctuated by crucial elections in many countries around the world, such as the United States, with the presidential election in November.
Algorithms play an important role in the valorization and devaluation of certain ideas, for example the censorship of Palestinian or pro-Palestinian content on social networks, particularly on Instagram and Facebook. And “to this is added the fact that the economic model of the high-tech giants, based on surveillance, pours fuel on this fire of hatred, allowing malicious people to harass, dehumanize, and amplify dangerous speeches in order to strengthen their power or gain votes,” wrote Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, in the press release accompanying the release of the report.