Overview

The majority of Amnesty’s publications1 are issued by the International Secretariat (IS), which has the largest research staff. Within the IS, however, there appears to be no consistent decision-making process regarding the topics covered. Decisions (whether ad-hoc or based on some amorphous guidelines) that reflect and determine the allocation of research resources are entirely hidden from members.

A 2007 study published in the Journal of Peace Research on Amnesty’s priorities, conducted by Howard Ramos, James Ron, and Oskar Thoms, confirmed that the media significantly influences NGOs’ priority-setting: “many social movement scholars” believe that “the most influential activists are those capable of packaging their concerns in ways that appeal to the media.”2 In a 2009 article, Ron and Ramos argued that human rights “watchdogs feel compelled to respond to media interest. Supply rises with demand; the more journalists who ask about a country, the more information watchdogs will supply.”3

This “feedback loop” creates “the virtuous (or vicious) cycles that drive public attention.”4 As a result, media focus is a major driver of Amnesty’s research agenda.5 Amnesty also uses media interest in a particular conflict as a fundraising tool, noting that obtaining donations was “easiest when AI has an urgent case backed up by strong testimonies and images.”6

Areas that receive minor media attention, such as conflicts in Central Africa, where mass killings take place with appalling frequency, are given far less attention than issues that receive a great deal of political and media attention. In the words of Ron and Ramos, “neglected countries,” therefore, are “simply too small, poor, or unnewsworthy to inspire much media interest.  With few journalists urgently demanding information about Niger, it ma[kes] little sense to invest substantial reporting and advocacy resources there.”7 One senior Amnesty official summed up this attitude, “’You can work all you like on Mauritania, but the press couldn’t give a rat’s ass.’”8

Amnesty’s neglect of the most egregious human rights violations was evident in December 2008 – January 2009, when more than 600 villagers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were killed by the Lord’s Resistance Army, led by Joseph Kony. Amnesty made only one apparent reference to these massacres.9 In contrast, Amnesty issued daily statements and numerous publications condemning the Israeli response to Palestinian rocket attacks from Gaza during this same period.

Similarly, closed dictatorships in much of the Middle East, where human rights violations are daily occurrences and part of the regime’s control mechanism, receive only minor attention from Amnesty. In one example, it soft-pedaled abuses in Qatar against migrant and domestic workers: the International Trade Union Confederation estimates that at least 4,000 workers will die as a result of the 2022 World Cup, scheduled to be hosted in Qatar. Since 2010, more than 1,200 citizens of Nepal and India have died.10 Yet, in the face of such horrible abuses, Shetty praised Qatar because it has “been quite open to Amnesty’s criticism and recommendations.”11

Within Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa (MENA) section, Israel receives a disproportionality large share of condemnations. This reflects a combination of media interest, ideology, and political alliances, particularly in the context of UN human rights mechanisms dominated by the Islamic bloc.
Rankings from Freedom House, an independent watchdog organization, while not flawless, provide a general sense of the human rights situation in a country. The following table shows the countries ranked worst12  in 2013 – 2014 on both “political rights” and “civil liberties” rubrics.  Amnesty’s publications on the country in the same year follow. Israel, which ranked well on both scales, gained more attention in terms of overall publications than most of the “worst of the worst.”

Freedom House Rankings and Amnesty Reporting 2013-201413

CountryPolitical Rights 2013Civil Liberties 2013Amnesty documents and reports 2013Political Rights 2014Civil Liberties 2014Amnesty documents and reports 2014 (Through November 30, 2014)
Israel2240  (Amnesty documents categorized as "Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory)1261
Laos776761
North Korea77117714
Saudi Arabia77457757
Somalia77217711
Sudan77457739
Swaziland771758
Syria77857777
Turkmenistan7711779
Uzbekistan77177717
Vietnam77167511
West Bank6517  (Amnesty documents categorized as "Palestinian Authority"6515
Gaza76n/a  (Amnesty does not report separately on Gaza)76n/a
Central African Republic55227736
Equatorial Guinea778775
Eritrea7711772

Between 2005 and 2013, Amnesty issued 580 publications that focused on Israel and the OPT (the term used by Amnesty for the West Bank and Gaza). While Egypt can be seen to have undergone a broadly comparative level of scrutiny to Israel during this period (720 publications), in practice 68% of those publications were compiled between 2011 and 2013, when the events of the so-called Arab Spring were already grabbing headlines in the West. From 2005-2013, Amnesty produced 760 publications on Syria’s – 59% were published between 2011 and 2013.

After distinguishing between “Urgent Action Items” (short and quickly assembled items) and ”Reports,” which reflect a much greater investment in time and resources, Amnesty’s focus on Israel becomes even clearer. From 2005 – 2013, 52 reports were published on Israel. When these reports are examined individually, it becomes clear that, of all countries in the region, Amnesty focused the greatest level of research on Israel. While a comparable number of reports were published on Iran and Iraq, in terms of report length and depth, more pages are devoted to Israel. The gap is widened if documents focused on Coalition troops in Iraq – which concern Westerners and not Iraqis – are discounted.

Amnesty’s obsessive focus on Israel belittles Israel’s democratic process, independent judiciary, and dozens of Israeli civil society organizations that monitor and report on alleged human rights violations there – a situation that is unique among the 18 countries within Amnesty’s MENA region. Had it not been for the Arab uprisings that began in 2011, this anomaly would have been even starker.