Amnesty denied producing or publishing the posters that circulated online [Getty]
Amnesty International have denied their involvement in the production of a set of posters showing Israeli athletes at the Olympics beating, drowning and shooting Palestinians.
Five posters were shared by the X accounts of Iran’s Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) and Palestinian Quds News Network, showing Israeli athletes from five Olympic sports, including fencing, two different martial arts, swimming and shooting.
The posters show the fencing athlete stabbing a boy, with one marital arts athlete beating a woman while another is beating a man. The swimmer is drowning a girl, and the shooter is aiming a rifle at two children.
All the posters feature a “Boycott Genocide” logo that was used atva conference in Beirut on 12 July, alongside the hashtags “BoycottGenocide”, and “OlympicsAgainstGenocide”, as well as the Amnesty International logo.
“We have been made aware of a number of Olympic-themes images circulating [on] the social media platform X bearing Amnesty’s logo that have not been produced or published by Amnesty International,” the organisation told The New Arab.
“We have reached out to the relevant parties, including X, to report the posts as fake,” Amnesty added.
At the time of publication both IRNA and Quds News Network’s X accounts had yet to remove the posts of the posters.
As well as being shared by two news outlets, the images have been shared on X by numerous other twitter accounts, including from a Persian-language account that claimed they were designed by a person named Mohammad Shakiba.
Israel’s participation in the 2024 Paris Olympics has led to widespread backlash amid its war on Gaza, which since 7 October has killed 39,400 people, wounded a further 90,996 people, and leaving much of the enclave destroyed.
The Iranian foreign ministry condemned Israel’s participation in the games, while the head of Palestine’s Olympic Committee accused the International Olympic Committee of “double standards” over allowing Israeli participation.
Many Palestinians have pointed out that while Russia has been banned for its invasion of Ukraine, Israel is being allowed to compete while waging a far more destructive and brutal war.
Around 400 Palestinian athletes have been killed in the war, while others have been unable to train or travel due to Israeli bombing or restrictions according to the Palestinian Olympic Committee.
