Amnesty International denies producing #OlympicsAgainstGenocide posters published by Iran news agency

Amnesty International has denied involvement in the production of posters showing Israeli athletes at the Olympics stabbing, drowning, and aiming a gun at Palestinians.

The English-language X accounts of Iran's Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) and the Palestinian Quds News Network (QNN) posted five images in total depicting Israeli athletes from sports including fencing, swimming, and shooting.

The posters show the fencer stabbing a boy, 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 at a 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," a spokesperson for the rights group told The New Arab.

"We have reached out to the relevant parties, including X, to report the posts as fake."

At the time of publication, neither IRNA nor QNN's X accounts had removed the posters.

The images have also been posted on X by numerous other accounts.

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 left much of the enclave destroyed.

The Iranian foreign ministry condemned Israel's participation in the games, while the head of the Palestine 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.