Amnesty's Secretary General Shalil Shetty made the remarks in a 415-page annual report of the group on Wednesday, focusing on Israeli crimes against Palestinians and on violence against people by armed groups in in the world, especially in Syria, Iraq, and Nigeria.
Pointing to the Tel Aviv regime’s atrocities against Palestinians, Shetty said in the report that the July 2014 Israeli assault on Gaza which claimed more than 2,000 lives - at least 1,500 of them civilians – was "marked by callous indifference and involved war crimes.”
Referring to the ISIL terrorists, Amnesty's Secretary General Shalil Shetty said in the report that the Takfiri group "has been responsible for war crimes in Syria, [and] has carried out abductions, execution-style killings and ethnic cleansing on a massive scale in northern Iraq.”
In the past four years, the report said, more than 200,000 people have died in Syria - overwhelmingly civilians – and around 4 million Syrian people are now refugees in other countries. Another 7.6 million are displaced inside Syria, the report added.
As for conflicts in other regions, the report also mentioned atrocities by Boko Haram in Nigeria as well as the sectarian violence in the Central African Republic and South Sudan.
The report blamed the international community for paying "lip services to the importance of protecting civilians” and still failing to protect them. "Amnesty International believes that this can and must finally change,” it said.
The group also criticized world governments for "pretending the protection of civilians is beyond their power.”
The report by Amnesty International criticized the UNSC, saying the UN body has "miserably failed” to protect civilians.
The five permanent members of the UNSC "consistently abused” their veto power to "promote their political self-interest or geopolitical interest above the interest of protecting civilians,” it said.
The UNSC is one of the principal organs of the United Nations and according to the UN Charter, its responsibility is to maintain international peace and security
Its five permanent members that are world's main powers – namely Britain, China, France, Russia and the US – have the "veto” power which can prevent adoption of any resolution.
Amnesty international in the report called on the five states to give up their veto power in cases where genocide and other mass killings are being committed, saying such an action would give the UN a better opportunity to save civilian lives in conflicts.