Secretary General Agnes Callamard, in her introduction to the 2025 report, cited what she described as "Israel's genocide of Palestinians in Gaza despite an ongoing ceasefire, Russia's growing crimes against humanity in Ukraine, the United States carrying out extraterritorial extrajudicial killings and unlawful attacks in Venezuela and Iran, and threats to seize Greenland".
Callamard also singled out China, saying its "pursuit of hegemony may take a different form and use different tools, but has the same effect: inequality and repression". She described the overall picture as "a vision of unchallenged hegemony, a world without a moral compass", also citing uncontrolled atrocities in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar and Sudan.
On a more positive note, the report highlighted the Council of Europe's establishment of a special tribunal for crimes of aggression against Ukraine and the UN Human Rights Council's launch of an investigative mechanism for Afghanistan.
It also noted that eleven governments, including Belgium, Canada, Colombia and Spain, committed to halting or changing arms exports to Israel in 2025, and that abortion rights were expanded in Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg and Malawi, among others.
The chapter on Poland noted that a 60-day suspension of the right to apply for international protection at the Belarus border, introduced in March 2025, was repeatedly extended and remained in force throughout the year. Journalists and civil society observers continued to be barred from the border buffer zone.
Warsaw removed seven countries — including Syria, Afghanistan, Eritrea and Sudan — from the list of states to which deportations were suspended, citing ongoing conflicts and repressive conditions.
The government justified the broader border policy changes as a response to what it called hybrid warfare, alleging that Belarusian and Russian services were deliberately channeling migrants to destabilize Poland and the EU.
Amnesty also criticized Poland's new widow and widower pension benefit for discriminating against unmarried and LGBT+ couples, and reiterated concerns about violence targeting the LGBT+ community, particularly online. The organization additionally noted that Poland has yet to ratify optional protocols to international human rights conventions that would allow citizens to file complaints at the international level.
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Source: PAP, Amnesty International