A political commentator in London has criticized two influential human rights groups for issuing a delayed and “watered down” report on US drone strikes, which have killed thousands of people in Pakistan, Yemen and other countries.
A report by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch released on Tuesday said that US drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen “may” constitute human rights violations and “appear to be war crimes.”
“To say that Americans ‘may’ have to face legal action, I think, that’s really watered down. There’s no may about it, they should. Anybody who commits a crime should be brought to justice,” Athar Hafeez Ghauri told Press TV on Tuesday.
The people who carry out the strikes should be held accountable for those crimes because “these are illegal assassination drone attacks on civilians,” Ghauri added.
The finding of the two key rights groups coincide with a report released Friday by a UN human rights investigator, who estimated that 2,200 people have been killed in CIA drone strikes over the past decade in Pakistan.
A 22-page UN expert report also said the CIA’s involvement in US drone attacks in Pakistan and Yemen “has created an almost insurmountable obstacle to transparency.”
Ghauri said the reports have come out too late. “Suddenly now they’re all coming out of the woodwork. Where have they been for the last god knows how many years when these assassinations have been taking place.”
AHT/ARA
Source: Press TV