Toronto (April 13, 2020) - Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center (FSWC) has reached out to Amnesty International Canada in search of answers after an Amnesty employee allegedly reported a civilian to Hamas for the crime of “engaging in normalization activity” with Israelis.

According to multiple media reports, an employee of Amnesty International wrote a Facebook post condemning a Gazan civilian for taking part in a Zoom call with an Israeli peace group and tagged a number of high-ranking Hamas officials in her post. Soon afterward, the civilian was detained by the Hamas security service and has not been heard from since. Amnesty International's website references the employee as a “research consultant,” including photos of the woman wearing a “press” vest while conducting work on the organization’s behalf.

In a letter to Amnesty International Canada President Lana Verran, FSWC wrote, “We would urgently like to understand how a person who was employed by Amnesty International – an organization with a mandate of protecting and promoting human rights - could be involved in reporting civilians to a brutal authoritarian government like Hamas.”

It is illegal in Gaza for citizens to have any contact with the “Israeli enemy.”