Thread by @althecat

It appears @Amnesty has learned nothing in the course of this war about the methodological issues related to the manner in which it is reporting on HR issues in Tigray/North Ethiopia. amnesty.org/en/latest/news…

In Nov and Dec, @Amnesty and @HRW conducted phone IVs with 31 people, including 25 witnesses and survivors as well as relatives of those detained and expelled, about abuses by Amhara security forces against Tigrayan civilians in the towns of Adebai, Humera, and Rawyan."

This report is clearly being released today - on the eve of an urgently requested @UN_HRC meeting tomorrow in Geneva for political and diplomatic purposes. It may have even triggered the meeting.

There is no actual reported attached to this release with data summaries and methodology described - it is effectively a piece of journalism, making lurid allegations which are impossible to assess in the absence of full disclosure of data and methods.

The description of methods indicates that this report is based on the same methodology which has raised numerous concerns over the course of this war, namely remote phone interviews with victims and witnesses.

While this is all these organisations can do at this time, the limitations of these methods in terms of achieving reliable conclusions need to be described.

Instead we have lurid allegations presented as facts.

Based on previous releases of similarly flawed reports the lurid quotes and conclusions from this latest report will be reported by media as they are verified truth, which they are not.

At the very least Amhara and Ethiopian authorities ought to have been given an opportunity to interrogate and respond to the report before it is presented in a quasi judicial manner with recommendations to the @UN_HRC.

Absent this, the presentation looks like exactly what it is, an ambush attack via media megaphone on the Govt. of Ethiopia.

The absence of professionalism from both @Amnesty and @HRW here is egregious.

/ENDS

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