Amnesty chief calls on world to stand up to ‘Donald Trump effect’ in Gaza
Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard has spoken to Al Jazeera at the Munich Security Conference about what she said was the “Donald Trump effect” on human rights around the world.
“In the case of Gaza, what we are witnessing is not even disruption … It is cruel destruction of a peace process that took months to be negotiated, that has reached a very fragile state,” she said.
“What Donald Trump has done is really fragilise it further and make phase two of that peace process extraordinarily difficult,” she noted.
“It is a war crime to forcibly push people out of their places, and it could be a crime against humanity if it is well organised; in a nutshell, it amounts to ethnic cleansing if was to be carried out,” she stated.
“This is where we need the rest of the world, the international community, the countries such as Jordan and Lebanon and others to stand up and say … absolutely no, and to say it in the most resolute and firm fashion,” she said.
‘Go to hell Donald Trump’: Pro-Palestine protesters gather at US embassy in Malaysia
Dozens of people chanted “Go to hell Donald Trump!” outside the US embassy in Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur, as pro-Palestinian protesters gathered to publicly reject the “lunatic ideas” of the US president to displace more than two million people from Gaza.
Organised by 18 civil society groups after Friday prayer, the protest in Kuala Lumpur was the second of its kind for the day, with the first being held in the morning outside the embassy. Both times, demonstrators had a written memorandum addressed to Trump containing a total of seven demands regarding Gaza and its Palestinian population, copies of which the embassy refused to accept.
“It is very disappointing as a country with the superpower status, they closed the whole embassy, refused to even receive our memorandum. This is really an act of cowardice,” said Chua Tian Chang, a representative of the Malaysian groups advocating for Palestinian rights.
According to the memorandum, the groups called on Trump to ensure the ceasefire in Gaza, protection of Palestinian sovereignty, an end to Israel’s siege of the territory, rejection of plans for the US to “take over” Gaza, as well as accountability for war crimes perpetrated in Gaza and sanctions on those committing crimes against humanity.
