The human rights organization, Amnesty International, published its annual report this Tuesday, April 21, in which it highlights that many world leaders demonstrated "cowardice" in 2025, when they should have been "resisting" against "predatory" heads of state such as Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu.
First modification: 04/21/2026 - 15:42 Last modification: 04/21/2026 - 15:54
A call for resistance against "predatory" leaders. Faced with heads of state such as US President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, many leaders demonstrated "cowardice" in 2025, when they should have been "resisting," Amnesty International highlighted in its annual report published this Tuesday, April 21.
“They promoted a strategy of economic and political domination through destruction, repression and widespread global violence”
According to the human rights organization, these heads of state act in defiance of the norms and international entities established after the Second World War, creating a world in which "war replaces diplomacy."
“By 2025, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu, to name just a few, have pursued a strategy of economic and political domination through destruction, repression and widespread global violence,” said Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard during the report's launch in London.
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The United States has committed “extrajudicial executions outside its borders,” “illegally attacked Venezuela and Iran” and threatened Greenland, the report highlights.
At the same time, the Trump Administration “did everything possible to undermine years, even decades of efforts” in defense of women's rights, Callamard told the AFP news agency, emphasizing that the presidents of the United States and Russia share a “deeply racist and patriarchal” worldview.
Israel continues its “genocide” against the Palestinian population in Gaza
As for the Government of Israel, “it has continued its genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza, despite the October ceasefire agreement,” without the international community having taken “significant measures,” the Amnesty International report charges.
In the face of “these thugs and looters,” almost all international leaders “have shown cowardice,” especially in Europe, laments Agnès Callamard.
“States, international organizations and civil society must reject the policy of appeasement at all costs and collectively resist these attacks,” the NGO urges.
Furthermore, according to Amnesty International, international institutions have suffered the “worst” attacks since 1948, with US sanctions against certain judges and prosecutors of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the US withdrawal from dozens of conventions, such as the IPCC climate change pact.
For the general secretary of the NGO, the current conflict in the Middle East illustrates the “slide towards contempt for law, from the first illegal attacks perpetrated by the United States and Israel (...) to the indiscriminate retaliation” by Iran.
This conflict broke out after Iranian authorities massacred protesters in January 2026, in what was probably the bloodiest repression of its kind in decades, the NGO adds.
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The report also details human rights abuses in countries such as Myanmar, ravaged by civil war since 2021, where the military has used motorized paragliders to drop explosive munitions on villages, killing dozens of civilians.
It also cites Sudan, where the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) committed massacres of civilians and sexual violence during the 18-month siege of El Fasher before the city fell in October 2025.
"We are at a crucial moment, in which everything built in the last 80 years is at risk of being destroyed"
Despite the gloomy global outlook, Amnesty International finds some glimmers of hope: the creation of a special court for the war in Ukraine and the extradition of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, accused of crimes against humanity, to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The NGO also celebrates the actions of longshoremen in Spain, France and Morocco to "interrupt the flow of weapons to Israel," as well as the commitment of American citizens who opposed ICE operations, sometimes risking their lives.
Agnès Callamard also hopes that the refusal of some European countries to join the attacks launched against Iran by the United States and Israel will mark the beginning of a "great resurgence." And he warned: "We are at a crucial moment, in which everything built in the last 80 years is at risk of being destroyed."
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This article was adapted from its original French version.
With AFP
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