Amnesty International showing its hypocrisy via an X Post. Photo: X.
By Joe Emersberger – Jul 17, 2025
It is pushing US-backed regime change in Venezuela during a US-sponsored Holocaust in Gaza
Venezuela has every right to defend itself from the genocidal US dictatorship. There has never been a time when that truth has been as obvious as it is today, or as important to state without the slightest equivocation. But the U.S. government doesn’t want you thinking that way, and neither does Amnesty International.
As the U.S. perpetrates a holocaust in Gaza, it struggles to mobilize global public opinion against (and attention on) the numerous governments around the world that it wants to overthrow. Amnesty International feels the Empire’s pain. It demands that the “International community” proritize what Washington demands in Venezuela, where the US has been trying to overthrow the government for decades. There is palpable frustration in the words that Amnesty published about Venezuela the other day:
“The international community cannot normalize or ignore the human rights crisis in Venezuela. The scale and gravity of the crimes committed in the country – particularly the enforced disappearance of people – must stir the conscience of the world, and propel international justice into action”
What Amnesty calls “the international community” is a genocidal U.S.-led imperial order. The holocaust in Gaza cannot happen without the sponsorship of the U.S. government, its top western allies, and various other institutions and governments corrupted by them. That includes, among others, the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, various technical UN bodies (the OPCW, and IAEA), the western media and “human rights” groups like Amnesty International.
Everything today relates back to Gaza
Do not be parochial in your analysis. Today, all geopolitics relates back to Gaza where the imperial order has been unmasked like never before. We are 21 months and counting into a US-sponsored holocaust. This is arguably the worst crime in human history because, unlike the holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis, or the ones perpetrated by European colonialists over the past 500 years, the horrors in Gaza are being live-streamed to the world every day. Anyone with an internet connection whose mind hasn’t been perverted by Zionism can see exactly what is happening in real time.
The U.S. has, hardly for the first time of course, opted to simply disregard global revulsion with its acts, but various governments (Brazil and Colombia for example) and NGOs like Amnesty cannot take that approach. To retain any use to the empire they must try to become the voices of acceptable dissent.
And therefore Amnesty (like the ICC) denounces Israeli atrocities but makes sure to always vilify Palestinian armed resistance as well. The ICC very belatedly issued arrest warrants against some of Nazi Israel’s leadership but made sure to include Hamas leaders as well. Since 2012 Amnesty has supported a full arms embargo on Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. It demanded no such ban on the US-backed rebels in Syria who eventually overthrew the Assad government.
On October 7, 2023 Palestinian fighters overran at least eight Israeli military bases. Amnesty doubled down on its vilification of Palestinian armed resistance, basically parroting the Israeli line that it was a massacre of civilians that had no possible justification. Between 1980 -2021 (years before the October 7 attacks) Nazi Israel’s periodic bombings and economic strangulation of the West Bank and Gaza killed over 100,000 Palestinians.
Fake dissent, a thankless but necessary imperial task
Zionists have a well known practice of attacking people and organizations who criticize “Israel” even in the most feeble and inadequate way. Amnesty has been targeted with such attacks. Whether zionists realize it or not, these attacks are a clever way to serve their objectives because they help portray groups like Amnesty as real rather than fake opponents.
Pointing to its fake opposition to genocide in Gaza, Amnesty hopes it has retained enough credibility to incite hatred of Venezuela’s government.
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Decades of serving the Empire in Venezuela
Justin Podur and I explained in our book, Extraordinary Threat, that Amnesty International’s reports on Venezuela have been terrible for decades. In 2017, we asked Amnesty if it would oppose the murderous sanctions Trump had just imposed on Venezuela. We also asked if it would oppose Trump’s military threats against Venezuela, and statements Trump officials had made trying to encourage a military coup.
Amnesty replied to us saying it would not do any of that because “responsible discussion on the current state of human rights in Venezuela should not be focussed on statements made by parties outside the country.” We were surprised that Amnesty would put such a despicable and absurd position in writing.
Justin and I showed that as far back 2002, when a US-backed military coup ousted former President Hugo Chavez for two days, Amnesty went to absurd lengths to deflect blame for US subversion onto the Chavez government. “Chavez film puts staff at risk, says Amnesty” proclaimed a Guardian headline of November 22, 2003. Amnesty’s rabidly anti-Chávez staff in Caracas managed to get a pro-Chávez documentary (The Revolution Will Not Be Televised) banned from Amnesty’s film festival in Vancouver.
Many years later, Amnesty granted “Prisoner of Conscience” status to Leopoldo Lopez, a participant in the 2002 coup and other coup attempts that followed. Amnesty denied the Prisoner of Conscience designation to Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange when they were imprisoned.
Amnesty’s hypocrisy knows no bounds
Amnesty’s latest statement says that “Venezuelan authorities are demonstrating that their cruelty knows no bounds”. We’ve been spending 21 months watching Palestinian children get murdered with US supplied bombs, watching Netanyahu receive standing ovations in the US Congress, watching the U.S. government abduct hundreds of Venezuelans on US soil and ship them to prison in El Salvador as if they were slaves in the eighteenth century. I use the word “watching” repeatedly to stress the impunity with which the US dictatorship commits its crimes. And yet, unmoved by this historical moment of US savagery that has utterly destroyed the credibility of its imperial order, Amnesty can’t help but act as if nobody has noticed anything – that its demonization of US enemies can continue as easily as before.
So how does Amnesty justify alleging boundless cruelty on the part of the government in Venezuela that Washington has been trying to destroy for decades? Amnesty says fifteen people were detained in Venezuela, including many foreigners, accused of seditious activities.
Amnesty expects us to take its hypocritical imperialist word that the charges are baseless and that due process was denied to the accused. Amnesty also expects us to be outraged that Venezuela has allegedly not said where some of the accused are detained. Never mind how often US-backed subversives have escaped Venezuela, or otherwise flouted the law thanks to having US protection. Juan Guaido, who the US spent years insanely declaring to be Venezuela’s interim president was never arrested.
Incidentally, the Chavez government broke diplomatic relations with Nazi Israel in 2009. President Maduro has maintained Chavez’s anti-Zionist stance. Amnesty’s beloved Venezuelan opposition leaders like Leopoldo Lopez, on the other hand, have always been bloodthirsty Zionists.
Decent people who are aware of Amnesty’s track record should have no problem seeing the Maduro government as vastly more credible than this fraudulent human rights organization. We should hope US-backed subversives continue to be arrested in Venezuela, and that Maduro’s government takes every step necessary to foil the genocidal dictatorship in Washington.
(Substack)
Joe Emersberger
Joe Emersberger is an engineer, writer, and activist based in Canada. His writing, focused on the Western media’s coverage of the Americas, can be found on FAIR.org, CounterPunch.org, TheCanary.co, Telesur English, and ZComm.org.
