Amnesty International (AI) Swedish co-founder Per Westberg announced his resignation from the human rights organization after Amnesty published a report accusing the Ukrainian military of violating the laws of war. “It is with a heavy heart at Amnesty’s statements about the war in Ukraine that I am ending my long and fruitful collaboration,” he told Svenska Dagbladet on Wednesday 10 August.

According to Westberg, Amnesty International initially addressed prisoner release issues, but “gradually, sometimes controversially, expanded its mandate and became another certainly notable organization with some influence”.

Per Westberg founded the Swedish arm of Amnesty International with Hans Göran Frank in 1964. From 1976 to 1982, Westberg was editor-in-chief of the newspaper Dagens Nyheter. He is also a member of the Nobel Committee for Literature.

resonance report

Amnesty International’s Ukraine report was published on 4 August. It claims that the Armed Forces of Ukraine, violating humanitarian law and the laws of war, are establishing bases in residential areas, including schools and hospitals, putting the civilian population at risk. At the same time, the organization noted that such a practice “in no way justifies indiscriminate Russian attacks”.

The publication of Amnesty caused an extremely negative reaction in Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused the organization of “immoral selectivity”. The Ukrainian Center for Strategic Communications accused the report’s authors of using the testimonies of people who ended up in prisons or filtering camps in the occupied territories.

Amnesty’s Ukrainian office said it did not participate in the preparation of the report, and its boss, Oksana Pokalchuk, resigned in protest. Amnesty International later said that it deplored the anguish and anger caused by the publication of the report, but did not withdraw the information and conclusions it contained.