2023-10-30 12:59:00
Philippe Hensmans must be given a certain sense of timing. When he arrived at Amnesty International as press officer after reading a small ad in the press, in May 1988, the world was preparing to experience two major events: the fall of the Soviet bloc and the bloody repression of demonstrations. Tiananmen Square.
“I still remember the Amnesty activists who sent letters to the East German and Polish authorities, and therefore to the Russian central power,” recalls the person concerned. “Then everything collapsed, the Iron Curtain fell, no one imagined that such a thing could happen. For many, at the time, it was the end of History.”
Amnesty International: “Before, leaders violated fundamental rights and denied them. Today, they assume it”
The Beijing massacre marks him even more. “This is one of the first spectacular actions that Amnesty has taken,” he continues. “We were wondering how to react, then we had the idea of publishing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Chinese so that people could display it on their cars. In the end, three out of four cars displayed it in Wallonia, there was a huge contagion effect, a bit like we saw more recently with the call for the release of Olivier Vandecasteele in Iran. I think this illustrates Amnesty’s role well: when people want to react, we have to give them the tools to do so.”
Carine Thibaut new director
Thirty-five years later, the tools have changed, the tragedies remain. On October 22, the defense and awareness NGO on respect for and violations of fundamental rights published a report presenting five concrete cases of war crimes committed by the Israeli army in Gaza since the terrible Hamas attack on October 7. last. Five specific situations, documented on the basis of satellite images, during which “Israeli attacks flouted international humanitarian law by not taking all precautions to spare civilians, by not establishing a distinction between civilian and military objectives, or by being directed against civilian objects.”
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“Having leaflets saying “we are going to bomb you” is collective punishment and therefore a war crime,” comments Philippe Hensmans, who insists that Amnesty equally condemns the barbarity of Hamas. “Amnesty International’s guideline is very clear: if we don’t have proof, we say nothing. If there is no violation of international law, we say nothing. If it is not a subject on which we have taken a position, we say nothing. In other cases, we must intervene.”
Carine Thibaut and Philippe Hensmans ©Pauline Arnould
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