Criticism of Human Rights Watch
Encyclopedia
The international non-governmental organization
Human Rights Watch
(HRW) has been accused by critics of being influenced by United States
government policy, in particular in relation to reporting on Latin America
; ignoring anti-Semitism
in Europe or being anti-Semitic; biases in relation to the Arab–Israeli conflict
; and unfair and biased reporting of human rights issues
in Eritrea
and Ethiopia
. Accusations in relation to the Arab–Israeli conflict include claims that HRW is biased against Israel
and that requesting or accepting donations from Saudi Arabia
n citizens causes it to be biased; it has also been accused of unbalanced reporting against Hezbollah in Lebanon
and against Palestinian militant groups.
HRW has publicly responded to criticisms relating to its reporting on Latin America and in the context of the Arab–Israeli conflict
.
owner of The Times
, accuses HRW of a lack of sufficient expertise to report on warfare because the organization has never hired any former members of any military or any person with expertise in warfare with the sole exception of Marc Garlasco
. The Times accuses HRW of overriding its own researcher who wished to rescind a factually inaccurate report accusing Israel of responsibility for the Gaza beach explosion (2006).
HRW has been accused of bias in gathering evidence because it is said to be "credulous of civilian witnesses in places like Gaza and Afghanistan" but "sceptical of anyone in a uniform." Robert Bernstein
, founder of HRW, now accuses the organization of poor research methods, for relying on "witnesses whose stories cannot be verified and who may testify for political advantage or because they fear retaliation from their own rulers."
According to The Times, HRW "does not always practice the transparency, tolerance and accountability it urges on others."
The pro-Israel research institute NGO Monitor
has accused HRW of "faulty methodology", "misrepresenting international law", and "promoting the BDS
agenda".
accuses HRW of "imbalance" since it ignores many human rights abusing regimes while covering other zones of conflict "intensely", notably Israel. It issued 5 lengthy reports on Israel in one 14 month period, whereas in 20 years it has issued only 4 reports on the conflict in Kashmir, despite the fact that there have been 80,000 conflict-related deaths in Kashmir and the fact that "torture and extrajudicial murder have taken place on a vast scale." It issued no report on post-election violence and repression in Iran. One source told The Times, "Iran is just not a bad guy that they are interested in highlighting. Their hearts are not in it. Let’s face it, the thing that really excites them is Israel.” The Times also accuses HRW of failing to report on human rights abuses of Arabs when "perpetrators are fellow Arabs."
now accuses HRW of allowing repressive regimes to play a "moral equivalence game" by failing to distinguish the evidence available from open and closed societies, and of failing to recognize the "difference between wrongs committed in self-defense and those perpetrated intentionally."
The Times accuses HRW of filling its staff with former radical political activists including Joe Stork
and Sarah Leah Whitson
, writing, "theoretically an organization like HRW would not select as its researchers people who are so evidently on one side."
HRW has been accused of being unwilling or unable to perceive threats posed by radical Islam because their leftist ideology leads them to see criticism of Hezbollah, Hamas, Al Qaeda and similar groups as "a dangerous distraction from the real struggle." An example was the 2006 verbal attack on Peter Tatchell
, who was accused of racism, Islamophobia and colonialism by HRW staff for criticizing Iranian execution of homosexuals.
On 7 September 2010, it was announced that George Soros
planned to donate 100 million US dollars to Human Rights Watch. Soros's donation was criticized by Gerald Steinberg, the founder of the pro-Israel research organization NGO Monitor
.
, Venezuela
and Honduras
. Robert Naiman, policy director of Just Foreign Policy, has claimed that HRW is "often heavily influenced" by United States
government policy.
that removed elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide
of Haiti
either voluntarily (according to US authorities) or involuntarily (according to Aristide and supporters) from the Americas
on a US plane accompanied by US security personnel on 29 February 2004. Z Communications
author Joe Emersberger claimed that HRW had accurately reported on human rights violations in Haiti following an earlier coup against Aristide, in 1991, but that it was inaccurate in reporting the relative numbers of violent deaths before and after the 2004 coup. Emersberger estimated the relative numbers of deaths as about 20–30 per year before the 2004 coup versus 1000 in the first month following the coup. He stated, "HRW's reports were not only inexcusably sparse, but they legitimized the overthrow of Aristide" and that HRW "knew that criminals were being incorporated into the police; yet they were silent about this contributing factor to the abuses that occurred under Aristide."
expelled two HRW staff accused of "anti-state activities" Foreign Minister
Nicolas Maduro
said "These groups, dressed up as human rights defenders, are financed by the United States. They are aligned with a policy of attacking countries that are building new economic models." On December 17, 2008 an open letter
was sent to the HRW Board of Directors in response to an HRW report, entitled, A Decade Under Chávez: Political Intolerance and Lost Opportunities for Advancing Human Rights in Venezuela. 118 scholars from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, México, the United States, the U.K., Venezuela, and other countries publicly criticized HRW for a perceived bias against the government of Venezuela
. The open letter criticized the report by stating that it "does not meet even the most minimal standards of scholarship, impartiality, accuracy, or credibility." The letter also criticized the lead author of the report, Jose Miguel Vivanco, for his "political agenda
", and called on Mr. Vivanco to discuss or debate his claims in "any public forum of his choosing". Hugh O'Shaughnessy
accused HRW of using false and misleading information, and said the report was "put together with the sort of know-nothing Washington bias..." Kenneth Roth
, director of Human Rights Watch responded, claiming the letter misrepresents "both the substance and the source material of the report.". Tom Porteous, Human Rights Watch's London director, replied saying that O'Shaughnessy "...not only fails to provide any evidence for these allegations" but that "...more seriously he misrepresents HRW's positions in his apparent determination to undermine our well earned international reputation for accuracy and impartiality."
after 8 July 2009, following the coup d'état of 28 June 2009. The authors of the statement said that after 8 July, HRW had not "raised the alarm over the extra-judicial killings, arbitrary detentions, physical assaults, and attacks on the press - many of which have been thoroughly documented - that have occurred in Honduras, in most cases by the coup regime against the supporters of the democratic and constitutional government of Manuel Zelaya." The authors requested HRW to make a strong statement against the human rights violations and to conduct its own investigation into them. The letter signers stated that the Obama
administration was supporting the de facto Roberto Micheletti
government, by providing "aid money through the Millennium Challenge Account and other sources" and by training Honduran military students at the School of the Americas
, and that the Obama administration was ignoring Honduras' human rights situation.
Four days later, HRW published a summary of a preliminary version of a major human rights report in Honduras by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
(IACHR) that had been released by IACHR on 21 August. HRW referred to its earlier reports published up to 8 July, stating "Given the scope of alleged abuses, and the region's history of bloody coups leading to massive violations, human rights advocates believed the situation warranted the direct intervention of the region's most authoritative human rights investigative body, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights." HRW did not state whether or not its summary of the IACHR preliminary report constituted a response to the 93 academics' and authors' appeal.
.
Anatol Sharansky, argued "here is an organization created by the goodwill of the free world to fight violations of human rights, which has become a tool in the hands of dictatorial regimes to fight against democracies," he said this week. "It is time to call a spade a spade. The real activity of this organization today is a far cry from what it was set up 30 years ago to do: throw light in dark places where there is really no other way to find out what is happening regarding human rights." Kenneth Roth has responded that "Israel accounts for about 15 percent of our published output on the region" and that "our war coverage in the region has documented violations by all sides". Roth argued that "by failing to hold those responsible to account, Israel increases anger and resentment among the Palestinian population and in the wider Arab world, and undercuts moderates who wish to pursue peace." Scott MacLeod of Time Magazine commented that Israel's policies can't be shielded from a group like Human Rights Watch.
HRW has been accused of bias against the state of Israel of issuing "one-sided and hostile" reports "attacking Israel" and of having an anti-Israel agenda by general circulation newspapers, the Israeli government and supporters of Israel. Political Science Professor and former consultant to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs Gerald M. Steinberg
of Bar Ilan University, head of NGO Monitor
, a pro-Israel NGO accused HRW of having "a strong anti-Israel bias from the beginning". He claimed their reports were based primarily on "Palestinian eyewitness testimony" — testimony that is "not accurate, objective or credible but serves the political goal of indicting Israel". According to David Bernstein
HRW is "maniacally anti-Israel". Mark Regev (spokesman for Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu) has said that "We discovered during the Gaza operation and the Second Lebanon War that these organizations come in with a very strong agenda, and because they claim to have some kind of halo around them, they receive a status that they don't deserve," in reference to HRW's and Amnesty International’s allegations of human rights violations by Israeli forces
during those conflicts.
There have been a number of accusations that HRW has either ignored anti-Semitism, or is anti-Semitic itself. Ana Palacio
, former Foreign Minister of Spain
, in a speech given to the Anti-Defamation League
in 2005 said, “NGOs like Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International pay little attention to anti-Semitism.” It has also been suggested (by ADL) that criticism of Israel may be motivated by anti-semitism. Abraham Foxman
writing in the New York Sun has said "not in an "eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth" fashion which Mr. Roth cited and is a classic anti-Semitic stereotype about Jews".
Sarah Leah Whitson
, director of HRW's Middle East and North Africa division, responding to the criticism said "in the case of Israel, where our focus is primarily on the violations of international law and humanitarian law in the occupied Palestinian territories, the fact that government is a democracy is completely irrelevant because the rule in place in the occupied territories is military rule, it is not a democracy". In July 2009, Larry Derfner writing in the Jerusalem Post in response to the criticism of HRW accused Israel's Prime Minister's Office and NGO Monitor of "smearing" human rights organizations. In August 2009, Iain Levine, Program Director for HRW stated "If the Israeli government wants to silence critics, it should fully investigate allegations of wrongdoing and take action to end the abuses."
Kenneth Roth
, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, wrote an editorial in The Jerusalem Post in August 2009 that the reports on recent Israeli human rights violations had "given rise to an intense campaign by the Israeli government and some of its uncritical supporters to smear the messengers and change the subject." He went on to write that the "problem is not the messenger carrying news of that misconduct, whether Judge Goldstone or the human rights groups that have been the target of a disinformation campaign launched by the Israeli government and some supporters. The problem is the conduct of the Israeli military."
According to The Times, "most" of the Middle East department staff of Human Rights Watch "have activist backgrounds — it was typical that one newly hired researcher came to HRW from the extremist anti-Israel publication Electronic Intifada — unlikely to reassure anyone who thinks that human-rights organisations should be non-partisan."
Marc Garlasco
, a senior investigator for HRW, has been criticized for being an avid collector of Nazi memorabilia. Emma Daly confirmed in March 2010 that Garlasco resigned from Human Rights Watch in February 2010, and offered no elaboration. “He has written a book, about Nazi-era medals. In one post he wrote: "That is so cool
! The leather SS jacket makes my blood go cold it is so COOL!" Commenting on allegations concerning Garlasco in the media, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's policy director said on September 9, 2009 that Human Rights Watch's employment of "a man who trades and collects Nazi memorabilia" as its senior military expert is a "new low". HRW issued a rebuttal to the allegations which stated that the "accusation is demonstrably false and fits into a campaign to deflect attention from Human Rights Watch's rigorous and detailed reporting on violations of international human rights and humanitarian law by the Israeli government." noting that Garlasco, "has never held or expressed Nazi or anti-Semitic views."
Helena Cobban
, a fellow Middle East analyst of the Human Rights Watch Middle East advisory board, noted that Garlasco engaged with "people who clearly do seem to be Nazi sympathizers," something she called "extremely disturbing,"
HRW replies that Garlasco "covered Iraq as a senior intelligence analyst at the Pentagon" The Guardian reports that he served in this role for 7 years. In addition they write that he was chief of high-value targeting during the Iraq war in 2003, was on the Operation Desert Fox (Iraq) Battle Damage Assessment team in 1998, and led a Pentagon Battle Damage Assessment team to Kosovo in 1999. He also participated in over 50 interrogations as a subject matter expert.
In a piece for The National, Alan Philps writes that "the Netanyahu government and its supporters have set out to destroy the credibility of the UN Human Rights Council and all non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working in the human rights field." "The aim is clearly to delegitimise the organisation at a time when its rights-based analysis coincides with the some of the views of the US president Barack Obama," Philps continued.
In a piece for the Christian Science Monitor, Robert Marquand notes that a U.N. report "Jurist Richard Goldstone, head of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, chief prosecutor for the Yugoslav war-crimes tribunal" showed illegal white phosphorus use consistent with Garlasco's first hand testimony which was provided to the Monitor. Marquand further wrote that it wasn't okay "to use Garlasco to distract from or obfuscate findings that war crimes and crimes against humanity may have taken place in Gaza".
Some columnists have criticised Human Right Watch for requesting, encouraging or accepting financial donations in Saudi Arabia, and have criticised HRW's methods in which it requests, encourages or accepts these funds. According to the critics, these methods include the descriptions of HRW's "battles" and arguments with Israel and its supporters. Herb Keinon
, a columnist for the Jerusalem Post, and Jeffrey Goldberg
, a correspondent for the Atlantic (magazine) and former columnist for the Jerusalem Post, claim this compromises HRW's integrity. In an email exchange, Jeffrey Goldberg
asked HRW director Kenneth Roth
if funds were raised to fight back against pro-Israel lobbying groups. Roth responded, "The Saudis obviously are aware of the systematic attacks on us by various reflexive defenders of Israel. Everyone is." During fundraisers, he states that these complaints are common in "discussions" and is not just exclusive to Saudi Arabia. Mark Regev (spokesman for Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu) has said that "A human rights organization raising money in Saudi Arabia is like a women's rights group asking the Taliban for a donation," in response to HRW's fund raising visit to Saudi Arabia.
David Bernstein
of the George Mason University School of Law
writes, something's "wrong when a human rights organization goes to one of the worst countries in the world for human rights to raise money to wage lawfare against Israel." although IPS latter claimed he apologized for suggesting that HRW didn't also discuss Saudi human rights abuses during the meetings.
Human Rights Watch says the allegations that HRW had "compromised its neutrality" by meeting with Saudi donors were based on "misleading assumptions and wrong facts". HRW notes that staffers made two presentations in Saudi Arabia in May 2009 in private homes to people who were interested in Human Rights Watch. Among an estimated 50 guests at a reception in Riyadh, there were three with governmental affiliations, "the spokesperson for the Ministry of Interior; the deputy head of the Human Rights Commission, a governmental organization; and a member of the Shura Council
, a government-appointed consultative body." According to HRW, none of those individuals were solicited for funds and HRW never accepts funds from government officials in any country. HRW stated that there is no reason why Saudi citizens cannot legitimately want to support human rights.
Gerald Steinberg, the executive director of NGO Monitor
, said that the HRW defense was an "absurd attempt to cast a distinction between soliciting Saudi officials and prominent members of society who owe their very position to the regime."
HRW told IPS
that the notion "that any money from Saudi Arabia is tainted because it comes from a country with a totalitarian ruling regime is a gross generalisation." adding "The ethnic background of our donors is irrelevant to the work we do,...It's not relevant to our work in Israel that many, many of our donors are Jewish. And it's not relevant for the work that we do that we get money from Arab countries".
According to HRW, its work in Saudi Arabia was discussed at the receptions, including "coverage of women's rights, the juvenile death penalty, domestic workers, and discrimination against religious minorities". HRW also claimed, "No other human rights group has produced a more comprehensive, detailed, and thorough body of work on Saudi Arabian human rights issues in recent years than Human Rights Watch" (HRW Saudi Arabia). Although the Gaza situation was covered, HRW claimed that the coverage was justified as the Gaza war dominated worldwide headlines and is a regional issue in Saudi Arabia. Criticism of HRW as anti-Israel was juxtaposed against the accusations HRW faces in much of the Middle East that HRW is soft on Israeli human rights violations.
In 2008, HRW issued five single-country reports and one multi-country report criticizing the Saudi Arabian government and in August 2009, HRW issued a report "Human Rights and Saudi Arabia's Counterterrorism Response: Religious Counseling, Indefinite Detention, and Flawed Trials" criticizing the Saudi Arabian government's counterterrorism program.
Ron Kampeas
in an analysis published by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
criticizes HRW reports for "Reconstructions of the horrific death of civilians replete with painstakingly gathered evidence are coupled with bewildering omissions of context and blended into a package that assumes an inherent Israeli immorality," and "efforts to turn criticism of individual officers and soldiers into a wholesale indictment of Israel’s military establishment and the decision to resort to military force." According to Kampeas, the HRW reports on the 2009 fighting in Gaza "fail to assess evidence -- including videos of Israeli forces holding their fire because of the presence of civilians -- that Israel has provided to show that such incidents were the exception to the rule; they fail to examine what measures Israel has taken to prevent civilian deaths, which would be pertinent in examining any claim of war crimes."
In October 2009, Robert L. Bernstein
, the founder of HRW, criticized the organization's policy in the Middle East in a New York Times
op-ed. Bernstein questioned the fact that "with increasing frequency, [HRW] casts aside its important distinction between open and closed societies... The region is populated by authoritarian regimes with appalling human rights records. Yet in recent years Human Rights Watch has written far more condemnations of Israel for violations of international law than of any other country in the region." Tom Porteus, director of the London branch of Human Rights Watch, replied that the organization rejected Bernstein's "obvious double standard. Any credible human rights organisation must apply the same human rights standards to all countries." Jane Olson and Jonathan Fanton wrote "we were saddened to see Robert L. Bernstein argue that Israel should be judged by a different human rights standard than the rest of the world" and "as long as open societies commit human rights abuses, Human Rights Watch has a vital role to play in documenting those violations and advocating to bring them to an end." Human Rights Watch noted that Bernstein brought his concerns to the Human Rights Watch Board of Directors in April 2009 and also noted that the board unanimously rejected his view that Human Rights Watch should report only on closed societies, and expressed its full support for the organization's work.
In April 2010, The New Republic
published a very lengthy and critical piece about HRW, discussing HRW's "giving disproportionate attention to Israeli misdeeds." Specifically, "Robert James - a businessman, World War II veteran, and member of the MENA [Middle East and North Africa Desk of HRW] advisory committee who has been involved with HRW almost since its inception -calls the group 'the greatest NGO since the Red Cross,” but argues that it is chronically incapable of introspection. “Bob [Bernstein, founder and former chair of HRW] is bringing this issue up on Israel,” he says. “But Human Rights Watch has a more basic problem. ... They cannot take criticism.'"
The New Republic
, referring to Bernstein's OpEd piece in the New York Times, quotes Bernstein, saying, "Yet, as difficult as it was to go public, Bernstein does not believe that Human Rights Watch left him with much choice. 'They think they’ve heard me out,' he says. 'You see, they think they’ve listened to me until they can’t listen anymore. Actually, they haven’t listened at all.'"
In November 2010, Bernstein gave the Shirley and Leonard Goldstein Lecture on Human Rights at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. During this lecture, he accused HRW of "fault[ing] Israel as the principal offender" in the Israel-Palestine conflict and suggested that groups like HRW were responsible for polarization on university campuses.
In December 2010, Jennifer Rubin
, writing in her Washington Post blog, described HRW as "an anti-Israel group masquerading as one devoted to human rights".
, Israel-based journalist Jonathan Cook
claimed that by making statements regarding the intentions of Israel and Hezbollah to target or to avoid targeting civilians that were not justified by the available evidence, HRW "[seemed to distort] its findings to placate the Israel lobby". Cook stated, 'HRW is accusing Hezbollah of committing graver war crimes than Israel, even though it killed far fewer civilians both numerically and proportionally, because its rockets are "less accurate"'. A representative of HRW responded, defending the organisation's objectivity. Cook countered that he did not criticise the empirical aspects of HRW's research, only its interpretation of that research.
HRW has also been criticised for taking Israel's side in its condemnation of the Palestinian use of human shields. Norman Finkelstein
has criticised HRW for "seeking to appease pro-Israel critics after taking the heat for its report documenting Israeli war crimes in Lebanon?".
, HRW accused in 2009 Israel and its supporters of an organized campaign of false allegations and misinformation aimed to discredit the group over its findings over the Gaza War. HRW ties the criticism to a statement by a senior official in the Israeli prime minister's office in June 2009, pledging to "dedicate time and manpower to combating" human rights organisations. HRW said it concluded the criticism amounted to an organized effort since attacks from different sources appeared to be co-ordinated. HRW said that similar language and arguments in criticism implied that there had been prior coordination. Iain Levine of HRW said "We are having to spend a lot of time repudiating the lies, the falsehoods, the misinformation".
A group of 10 Israeli rights groups has protested that the Israeli government has been attempting to "instill fear and silence or alarm vital organizations" that were engaging in free public discourse.
in Eritrea
and Ethiopia.
of being responsible for serious human rights violations. Sophia Tesfamariam, Director of the US Foundation for the Horn of Africa
refuted the allegations in the report which she described as an "anti-Eritrea report" and stated "HRW goes to great lengths to embellish the truth in its attempts to paint a bleak picture of Eritrea and its government". She described it as “not only short on facts and evidence, but also short on intellectual and professional integrity”.
as hearsay and its methods as slapdash.
Non-governmental organization
A non-governmental organization is a legally constituted organization created by natural or legal persons that operates independently from any government. The term originated from the United Nations , and is normally used to refer to organizations that do not form part of the government and are...
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...
(HRW) has been accused by critics of being influenced by United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
government policy, in particular in relation to reporting on Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
; ignoring anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
in Europe or being anti-Semitic; biases in relation to the Arab–Israeli conflict
Arab–Israeli conflict
The Arab–Israeli conflict refers to political tensions and open hostilities between the Arab peoples and the Jewish community of the Middle East. The modern Arab-Israeli conflict began with the rise of Zionism and Arab Nationalism towards the end of the nineteenth century, and intensified with the...
; and unfair and biased reporting of human rights issues
Human rights in Eritrea
Human rights in Eritrea are viewed as poor. Eritrea is a one-party state in which national legislative elections have been repeatedly postponed, the judiciary is weak, and constitutional provisions protecting individual freedom have yet to be fully implemented. Security forces are responsible for...
in Eritrea
Eritrea
Eritrea , officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea derives it's name from the Greek word Erethria, meaning 'red land'. The capital is Asmara. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast...
and Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
. Accusations in relation to the Arab–Israeli conflict include claims that HRW is biased against Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
and that requesting or accepting donations from Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...
n citizens causes it to be biased; it has also been accused of unbalanced reporting against Hezbollah in Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
and against Palestinian militant groups.
HRW has publicly responded to criticisms relating to its reporting on Latin America and in the context of the Arab–Israeli conflict
Arab–Israeli conflict
The Arab–Israeli conflict refers to political tensions and open hostilities between the Arab peoples and the Jewish community of the Middle East. The modern Arab-Israeli conflict began with the rise of Zionism and Arab Nationalism towards the end of the nineteenth century, and intensified with the...
.
Poor research and inaccuracy
The Rupert MurdochRupert Murdoch
Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG is an Australian-American business magnate. He is the founder and Chairman and CEO of , the world's second-largest media conglomerate....
owner of The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, accuses HRW of a lack of sufficient expertise to report on warfare because the organization has never hired any former members of any military or any person with expertise in warfare with the sole exception of Marc Garlasco
Marc Garlasco
Marc Garlasco is an American former senior military expert for Human Rights Watch who specialized in battle damage assessment, military operations, and interrogations for the Emergencies Division...
. The Times accuses HRW of overriding its own researcher who wished to rescind a factually inaccurate report accusing Israel of responsibility for the Gaza beach explosion (2006).
HRW has been accused of bias in gathering evidence because it is said to be "credulous of civilian witnesses in places like Gaza and Afghanistan" but "sceptical of anyone in a uniform." Robert Bernstein
Robert L. Bernstein
-Career in Publishing:Bernstein started as an office boy at Simon & Schuster in 1946, moved to Random House in 1956 and succeeded Bennett Cerf as President and CEO in 1966. He served as the President of Random House for 25 years. He published many great American authors, including William...
, founder of HRW, now accuses the organization of poor research methods, for relying on "witnesses whose stories cannot be verified and who may testify for political advantage or because they fear retaliation from their own rulers."
According to The Times, HRW "does not always practice the transparency, tolerance and accountability it urges on others."
The pro-Israel research institute NGO Monitor
NGO Monitor
NGO Monitor is a non-governmental organization based in Jerusalem, Israel whose stated aim is to generate and distribute critical analysis and reports on the output of the international NGO community for the benefit of government policy makers, journalists, philanthropic organizations and the...
has accused HRW of "faulty methodology", "misrepresenting international law", and "promoting the BDS
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions refers to a campaign first initiated on 9 July 2005 by 171 Palestinian non-governmental organizations in support of the Palestinian cause ".....
agenda".
Selection bias
The TimesThe Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
accuses HRW of "imbalance" since it ignores many human rights abusing regimes while covering other zones of conflict "intensely", notably Israel. It issued 5 lengthy reports on Israel in one 14 month period, whereas in 20 years it has issued only 4 reports on the conflict in Kashmir, despite the fact that there have been 80,000 conflict-related deaths in Kashmir and the fact that "torture and extrajudicial murder have taken place on a vast scale." It issued no report on post-election violence and repression in Iran. One source told The Times, "Iran is just not a bad guy that they are interested in highlighting. Their hearts are not in it. Let’s face it, the thing that really excites them is Israel.” The Times also accuses HRW of failing to report on human rights abuses of Arabs when "perpetrators are fellow Arabs."
Ideological bias
HRW founder Robert BernsteinRobert Bernstein
Robert Bernstein , sometimes credited as R. Berns, was an American comic book writer. He is best known for his work superhero work on DC Comics' Superman, and in establishing the origin and most of the mythos of Aquaman....
now accuses HRW of allowing repressive regimes to play a "moral equivalence game" by failing to distinguish the evidence available from open and closed societies, and of failing to recognize the "difference between wrongs committed in self-defense and those perpetrated intentionally."
The Times accuses HRW of filling its staff with former radical political activists including Joe Stork
Joe Stork
Joe Stork is an American political activist and Deputy Director for Middle East and North Africa at Human Rights Watch. He holds an M.A. in International Affairs/Middle East Studies from Columbia University.-Career:...
and Sarah Leah Whitson
Sarah Leah Whitson
Sarah Leah Whitson is an American human rights activist and director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch.-Early life and education :Whitson was reared by a mother who was born in the Armenian quarter of Jerusalem's Old City...
, writing, "theoretically an organization like HRW would not select as its researchers people who are so evidently on one side."
HRW has been accused of being unwilling or unable to perceive threats posed by radical Islam because their leftist ideology leads them to see criticism of Hezbollah, Hamas, Al Qaeda and similar groups as "a dangerous distraction from the real struggle." An example was the 2006 verbal attack on Peter Tatchell
Peter Tatchell
Peter Gary Tatchell is an Australian-born British political campaigner best known for his work with LGBT social movements...
, who was accused of racism, Islamophobia and colonialism by HRW staff for criticizing Iranian execution of homosexuals.
Fund-raising policies
HRW has been criticized for cooperating with the Saudi government by holding fundraisers in that country, and for not releasing the names of its Saudi donors.On 7 September 2010, it was announced that George Soros
George Soros
George Soros is a Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, philosopher, and philanthropist. He is the chairman of Soros Fund Management. Soros supports progressive-liberal causes...
planned to donate 100 million US dollars to Human Rights Watch. Soros's donation was criticized by Gerald Steinberg, the founder of the pro-Israel research organization NGO Monitor
NGO Monitor
NGO Monitor is a non-governmental organization based in Jerusalem, Israel whose stated aim is to generate and distribute critical analysis and reports on the output of the international NGO community for the benefit of government policy makers, journalists, philanthropic organizations and the...
.
Allegations of bias concerning Latin America
Claims have been made regarding alleged HRW bias with regards to HaitiHaiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
, Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
and Honduras
Honduras
Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...
. Robert Naiman, policy director of Just Foreign Policy, has claimed that HRW is "often heavily influenced" by United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
government policy.
Haiti
The 2004 Haiti rebellion was a coup d'etatCoup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
that removed elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide
Jean-Bertrand Aristide
Jean-Bertrand Aristide is a Haitian former Catholic priest and politician who served as Haiti's first democratically elected president. A proponent of liberation theology, Aristide was appointed to a parish in Port-au-Prince in 1982 after completing his studies...
of Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
either voluntarily (according to US authorities) or involuntarily (according to Aristide and supporters) from the Americas
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
on a US plane accompanied by US security personnel on 29 February 2004. Z Communications
Z Communications
Z Communications is a radical left-wing media group founded in 1986 by Michael Albert and Lydia Sargent. It advocates participatory socialism as a replacement for capitalism. Its publications include Z Magazine, ZNet, Z Media, and Z Video.Z Communications is based outside Woods Hole, Massachusetts...
author Joe Emersberger claimed that HRW had accurately reported on human rights violations in Haiti following an earlier coup against Aristide, in 1991, but that it was inaccurate in reporting the relative numbers of violent deaths before and after the 2004 coup. Emersberger estimated the relative numbers of deaths as about 20–30 per year before the 2004 coup versus 1000 in the first month following the coup. He stated, "HRW's reports were not only inexcusably sparse, but they legitimized the overthrow of Aristide" and that HRW "knew that criminals were being incorporated into the police; yet they were silent about this contributing factor to the abuses that occurred under Aristide."
Venezuela
Human Rights Watch's work in Venezuela became the subject of controversy in late 2008. In September 2008, VenezuelaVenezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
expelled two HRW staff accused of "anti-state activities" Foreign Minister
Foreign minister
A Minister of Foreign Affairs, or foreign minister, is a cabinet minister who helps form the foreign policy of a sovereign state. The foreign minister is often regarded as the most senior ministerial position below that of the head of government . It is often granted to the deputy prime minister in...
Nicolas Maduro
Nicolás Maduro
Nicolás Maduro Moros is a Venezuelan politician who was appointed foreign minister by President Hugo Chávez on 9 August 2006.- Biography :...
said "These groups, dressed up as human rights defenders, are financed by the United States. They are aligned with a policy of attacking countries that are building new economic models." On December 17, 2008 an open letter
Open letter
An open letter is a letter that is intended to be read by a wide audience, or a letter intended for an individual, but that is nonetheless widely distributed intentionally....
was sent to the HRW Board of Directors in response to an HRW report, entitled, A Decade Under Chávez: Political Intolerance and Lost Opportunities for Advancing Human Rights in Venezuela. 118 scholars from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, México, the United States, the U.K., Venezuela, and other countries publicly criticized HRW for a perceived bias against the government of Venezuela
Government of Venezuela
|Venezuela is a federal presidential republic governed by a constitution. There are five branches of government: Executive, Legislative, Judicial, Citizen, and Electoral....
. The open letter criticized the report by stating that it "does not meet even the most minimal standards of scholarship, impartiality, accuracy, or credibility." The letter also criticized the lead author of the report, Jose Miguel Vivanco, for his "political agenda
Political agenda
A political agenda is a set of issues and policies laid out by an executive or cabinet in government that tries to influence current and near-future political news and debate....
", and called on Mr. Vivanco to discuss or debate his claims in "any public forum of his choosing". Hugh O'Shaughnessy
Hugh O'Shaughnessy
Hugh O'Shaughnessy is an Irish journalist who has worked for over 40 years for major British newspapers including The Observer, The Independent, the Financial Times and most frequently The Guardian. He has also published a number of books focusing on Latin America. He was a friend of Salvador Allende...
accused HRW of using false and misleading information, and said the report was "put together with the sort of know-nothing Washington bias..." Kenneth Roth
Kenneth Roth
Kenneth Roth is an American attorney and has been the executive director of Human Rights Watch since 1993.-Background:Kenneth Roth, a graduate of Yale Law School and Brown University, was drawn to human rights causes through his Jewish father's experience of fleeing Nazi Germany in 1938...
, director of Human Rights Watch responded, claiming the letter misrepresents "both the substance and the source material of the report.". Tom Porteous, Human Rights Watch's London director, replied saying that O'Shaughnessy "...not only fails to provide any evidence for these allegations" but that "...more seriously he misrepresents HRW's positions in his apparent determination to undermine our well earned international reputation for accuracy and impartiality."
Honduras
On 21 August 2009, 93 academics and authors from the UK, US, Canada, Australia, Mexico, Colombia and other countries published an open letter in which they criticised HRW for HRW's "absence of statements and reports" on human rights violations in HondurasHonduras
Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...
after 8 July 2009, following the coup d'état of 28 June 2009. The authors of the statement said that after 8 July, HRW had not "raised the alarm over the extra-judicial killings, arbitrary detentions, physical assaults, and attacks on the press - many of which have been thoroughly documented - that have occurred in Honduras, in most cases by the coup regime against the supporters of the democratic and constitutional government of Manuel Zelaya." The authors requested HRW to make a strong statement against the human rights violations and to conduct its own investigation into them. The letter signers stated that the Obama
Presidency of Barack Obama
The Presidency of Barack Obama began at noon EST on January 20, 2009 when he became the 44th President of the United States. Obama was a United States Senator from Illinois at the time of his victory over Arizona Senator John McCain in the 2008 presidential election...
administration was supporting the de facto Roberto Micheletti
Roberto Micheletti
Roberto Micheletti Baín is a former de facto president of Honduras who served as a result of the 2009 coup d'état. The Honduran military was ordered by the Supreme Court to forcefully detain President Manuel Zelaya once the Court stated he was violating the Honduran constitution; Zelaya was exiled...
government, by providing "aid money through the Millennium Challenge Account and other sources" and by training Honduran military students at the School of the Americas
Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation
The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation , formerly the United States Army School of the Americas is a United States Department of Defense educational and training facility at Fort Benning near Columbus, Georgia in the United States...
, and that the Obama administration was ignoring Honduras' human rights situation.
Four days later, HRW published a summary of a preliminary version of a major human rights report in Honduras by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
Inter-American Court of Human Rights
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights is an autonomous judicial institution based in the city of San José, Costa Rica. Together with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, it makes up the human rights protection system of the Organization of American States , which serves to uphold and...
(IACHR) that had been released by IACHR on 21 August. HRW referred to its earlier reports published up to 8 July, stating "Given the scope of alleged abuses, and the region's history of bloody coups leading to massive violations, human rights advocates believed the situation warranted the direct intervention of the region's most authoritative human rights investigative body, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights." HRW did not state whether or not its summary of the IACHR preliminary report constituted a response to the 93 academics' and authors' appeal.
Allegations of bias concerning the Arab–Israeli conflict
Some criticisms of HRW relate to the roughly one century of political tensions and open hostilities of the Arab–Israeli conflictArab–Israeli conflict
The Arab–Israeli conflict refers to political tensions and open hostilities between the Arab peoples and the Jewish community of the Middle East. The modern Arab-Israeli conflict began with the rise of Zionism and Arab Nationalism towards the end of the nineteenth century, and intensified with the...
.
Anti-Israel or pro-Arab-League bias
Aryeh Neier, a founder of Human Rights Watch says that it "is wrong to suggest that open societies should be spared criticism for human rights abuses" Neier also states that Robert L. Bernstein's contention that the difference between "wrongs committed in self-defense and those committed intentionally" is not made by the laws of war. And that It is also a dangerous distinction. On such grounds, groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq that murdered tens of thousands of civilians after the American invasion of 2003 could claim excuses for their crimes.Anatol Sharansky, argued "here is an organization created by the goodwill of the free world to fight violations of human rights, which has become a tool in the hands of dictatorial regimes to fight against democracies," he said this week. "It is time to call a spade a spade. The real activity of this organization today is a far cry from what it was set up 30 years ago to do: throw light in dark places where there is really no other way to find out what is happening regarding human rights." Kenneth Roth has responded that "Israel accounts for about 15 percent of our published output on the region" and that "our war coverage in the region has documented violations by all sides". Roth argued that "by failing to hold those responsible to account, Israel increases anger and resentment among the Palestinian population and in the wider Arab world, and undercuts moderates who wish to pursue peace." Scott MacLeod of Time Magazine commented that Israel's policies can't be shielded from a group like Human Rights Watch.
HRW has been accused of bias against the state of Israel of issuing "one-sided and hostile" reports "attacking Israel" and of having an anti-Israel agenda by general circulation newspapers, the Israeli government and supporters of Israel. Political Science Professor and former consultant to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs Gerald M. Steinberg
Gerald M. Steinberg
Gerald M. Steinberg is an Israeli academic and political scientist.-Biography:Gerald M. Steinberg obtained his doctorate in government from Cornell University, in 1981. M.A. Government Department, Cornell University, 1978. M.Sc. Physics Department, University of California, San Diego, 1975. B.A...
of Bar Ilan University, head of NGO Monitor
NGO Monitor
NGO Monitor is a non-governmental organization based in Jerusalem, Israel whose stated aim is to generate and distribute critical analysis and reports on the output of the international NGO community for the benefit of government policy makers, journalists, philanthropic organizations and the...
, a pro-Israel NGO accused HRW of having "a strong anti-Israel bias from the beginning". He claimed their reports were based primarily on "Palestinian eyewitness testimony" — testimony that is "not accurate, objective or credible but serves the political goal of indicting Israel". According to David Bernstein
David Bernstein (law professor)
David E. Bernstein is Foundation Professor at the George Mason University School of Law in Arlington, Virginia, where he has been teaching since 1995....
HRW is "maniacally anti-Israel". Mark Regev (spokesman for Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu) has said that "We discovered during the Gaza operation and the Second Lebanon War that these organizations come in with a very strong agenda, and because they claim to have some kind of halo around them, they receive a status that they don't deserve," in reference to HRW's and Amnesty International’s allegations of human rights violations by Israeli forces
Israel Defense Forces
The Israel Defense Forces , commonly known in Israel by the Hebrew acronym Tzahal , are the military forces of the State of Israel. They consist of the ground forces, air force and navy. It is the sole military wing of the Israeli security forces, and has no civilian jurisdiction within Israel...
during those conflicts.
There have been a number of accusations that HRW has either ignored anti-Semitism, or is anti-Semitic itself. Ana Palacio
Ana Palacio
Ana Isabel de Palacio y del Valle-Lersundi in Madrid, daughter of Luis María de Palacio y de Palacio, 4th Marqués de Matonte, and wife Luisa Mariana del Valle-Lersundi y del Valle, was Spain's Minister for Foreign Affairs in the People's Party government of José María Aznar from July 2002-March...
, former Foreign Minister of Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, in a speech given to the Anti-Defamation League
Anti-Defamation League
The Anti-Defamation League is an international non-governmental organization based in the United States. Describing itself as "the nation's premier civil rights/human relations agency", the ADL states that it "fights anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and protects...
in 2005 said, “NGOs like Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International pay little attention to anti-Semitism.” It has also been suggested (by ADL) that criticism of Israel may be motivated by anti-semitism. Abraham Foxman
Abraham Foxman
Abraham H. Foxman is the National Director of the Anti-Defamation League.-Early life:Foxman, an only son, was born in Baranovichi, just months after the USSR took the town from Poland in the Nazi-Soviet Pact and incorporated it into the BSSR. The town is now in Belarus...
writing in the New York Sun has said "not in an "eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth" fashion which Mr. Roth cited and is a classic anti-Semitic stereotype about Jews".
Sarah Leah Whitson
Sarah Leah Whitson
Sarah Leah Whitson is an American human rights activist and director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch.-Early life and education :Whitson was reared by a mother who was born in the Armenian quarter of Jerusalem's Old City...
, director of HRW's Middle East and North Africa division, responding to the criticism said "in the case of Israel, where our focus is primarily on the violations of international law and humanitarian law in the occupied Palestinian territories, the fact that government is a democracy is completely irrelevant because the rule in place in the occupied territories is military rule, it is not a democracy". In July 2009, Larry Derfner writing in the Jerusalem Post in response to the criticism of HRW accused Israel's Prime Minister's Office and NGO Monitor of "smearing" human rights organizations. In August 2009, Iain Levine, Program Director for HRW stated "If the Israeli government wants to silence critics, it should fully investigate allegations of wrongdoing and take action to end the abuses."
Kenneth Roth
Kenneth Roth
Kenneth Roth is an American attorney and has been the executive director of Human Rights Watch since 1993.-Background:Kenneth Roth, a graduate of Yale Law School and Brown University, was drawn to human rights causes through his Jewish father's experience of fleeing Nazi Germany in 1938...
, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, wrote an editorial in The Jerusalem Post in August 2009 that the reports on recent Israeli human rights violations had "given rise to an intense campaign by the Israeli government and some of its uncritical supporters to smear the messengers and change the subject." He went on to write that the "problem is not the messenger carrying news of that misconduct, whether Judge Goldstone or the human rights groups that have been the target of a disinformation campaign launched by the Israeli government and some supporters. The problem is the conduct of the Israeli military."
According to The Times, "most" of the Middle East department staff of Human Rights Watch "have activist backgrounds — it was typical that one newly hired researcher came to HRW from the extremist anti-Israel publication Electronic Intifada — unlikely to reassure anyone who thinks that human-rights organisations should be non-partisan."
Garlasco incident
Marc Garlasco
Marc Garlasco
Marc Garlasco is an American former senior military expert for Human Rights Watch who specialized in battle damage assessment, military operations, and interrogations for the Emergencies Division...
, a senior investigator for HRW, has been criticized for being an avid collector of Nazi memorabilia. Emma Daly confirmed in March 2010 that Garlasco resigned from Human Rights Watch in February 2010, and offered no elaboration. “He has written a book, about Nazi-era medals. In one post he wrote: "That is so cool
Cool (aesthetic)
Something regarded as cool is an admired aesthetic of attitude, behavior, comportment, appearance and style, influenced by and a product of the Zeitgeist. Because of the varied and changing connotations of cool, as well its subjective nature, the word has no single meaning. It has associations of...
! The leather SS jacket makes my blood go cold it is so COOL!" Commenting on allegations concerning Garlasco in the media, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's policy director said on September 9, 2009 that Human Rights Watch's employment of "a man who trades and collects Nazi memorabilia" as its senior military expert is a "new low". HRW issued a rebuttal to the allegations which stated that the "accusation is demonstrably false and fits into a campaign to deflect attention from Human Rights Watch's rigorous and detailed reporting on violations of international human rights and humanitarian law by the Israeli government." noting that Garlasco, "has never held or expressed Nazi or anti-Semitic views."
Helena Cobban
Helena Cobban
Helena Cobban is a British-American writer and researcher on international relations, with special interests in the Middle East, the international system, and transitional justice. In March 2010, she founded a new book-publishing company, Just World Publishing, LLC...
, a fellow Middle East analyst of the Human Rights Watch Middle East advisory board, noted that Garlasco engaged with "people who clearly do seem to be Nazi sympathizers," something she called "extremely disturbing,"
HRW replies that Garlasco "covered Iraq as a senior intelligence analyst at the Pentagon" The Guardian reports that he served in this role for 7 years. In addition they write that he was chief of high-value targeting during the Iraq war in 2003, was on the Operation Desert Fox (Iraq) Battle Damage Assessment team in 1998, and led a Pentagon Battle Damage Assessment team to Kosovo in 1999. He also participated in over 50 interrogations as a subject matter expert.
In a piece for The National, Alan Philps writes that "the Netanyahu government and its supporters have set out to destroy the credibility of the UN Human Rights Council and all non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working in the human rights field." "The aim is clearly to delegitimise the organisation at a time when its rights-based analysis coincides with the some of the views of the US president Barack Obama," Philps continued.
In a piece for the Christian Science Monitor, Robert Marquand notes that a U.N. report "Jurist Richard Goldstone, head of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, chief prosecutor for the Yugoslav war-crimes tribunal" showed illegal white phosphorus use consistent with Garlasco's first hand testimony which was provided to the Monitor. Marquand further wrote that it wasn't okay "to use Garlasco to distract from or obfuscate findings that war crimes and crimes against humanity may have taken place in Gaza".
Criticism of fund raising in Saudi Arabia
Some columnists have criticised Human Right Watch for requesting, encouraging or accepting financial donations in Saudi Arabia, and have criticised HRW's methods in which it requests, encourages or accepts these funds. According to the critics, these methods include the descriptions of HRW's "battles" and arguments with Israel and its supporters. Herb Keinon
Herb Keinon
Herb Keinon is a long-time journalist and columnist for The Jerusalem Post. Keinon is originally from Denver, has a Bachelor of Arts in political science from the...
, a columnist for the Jerusalem Post, and Jeffrey Goldberg
Jeffrey Goldberg
Jeffrey Mark Goldberg is an American journalist. He is an author and a staff writer for The Atlantic, having previously worked for The New Yorker. Goldberg writes principally on foreign affairs, with a focus on the Middle East and Africa...
, a correspondent for the Atlantic (magazine) and former columnist for the Jerusalem Post, claim this compromises HRW's integrity. In an email exchange, Jeffrey Goldberg
Jeffrey Goldberg
Jeffrey Mark Goldberg is an American journalist. He is an author and a staff writer for The Atlantic, having previously worked for The New Yorker. Goldberg writes principally on foreign affairs, with a focus on the Middle East and Africa...
asked HRW director Kenneth Roth
Kenneth Roth
Kenneth Roth is an American attorney and has been the executive director of Human Rights Watch since 1993.-Background:Kenneth Roth, a graduate of Yale Law School and Brown University, was drawn to human rights causes through his Jewish father's experience of fleeing Nazi Germany in 1938...
if funds were raised to fight back against pro-Israel lobbying groups. Roth responded, "The Saudis obviously are aware of the systematic attacks on us by various reflexive defenders of Israel. Everyone is." During fundraisers, he states that these complaints are common in "discussions" and is not just exclusive to Saudi Arabia. Mark Regev (spokesman for Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu) has said that "A human rights organization raising money in Saudi Arabia is like a women's rights group asking the Taliban for a donation," in response to HRW's fund raising visit to Saudi Arabia.
David Bernstein
David Bernstein (law professor)
David E. Bernstein is Foundation Professor at the George Mason University School of Law in Arlington, Virginia, where he has been teaching since 1995....
of the George Mason University School of Law
George Mason University School of Law
George Mason University School of Law is the law school of George Mason University, a state university in Virginia, United States...
writes, something's "wrong when a human rights organization goes to one of the worst countries in the world for human rights to raise money to wage lawfare against Israel." although IPS latter claimed he apologized for suggesting that HRW didn't also discuss Saudi human rights abuses during the meetings.
Human Rights Watch says the allegations that HRW had "compromised its neutrality" by meeting with Saudi donors were based on "misleading assumptions and wrong facts". HRW notes that staffers made two presentations in Saudi Arabia in May 2009 in private homes to people who were interested in Human Rights Watch. Among an estimated 50 guests at a reception in Riyadh, there were three with governmental affiliations, "the spokesperson for the Ministry of Interior; the deputy head of the Human Rights Commission, a governmental organization; and a member of the Shura Council
Shura Council
The Shura Council is the upper house of Egyptian bicameral Parliament. Its name roughly translates into English as "the Consultative Council". The lower house of parliament is the People's Assembly....
, a government-appointed consultative body." According to HRW, none of those individuals were solicited for funds and HRW never accepts funds from government officials in any country. HRW stated that there is no reason why Saudi citizens cannot legitimately want to support human rights.
Gerald Steinberg, the executive director of NGO Monitor
NGO Monitor
NGO Monitor is a non-governmental organization based in Jerusalem, Israel whose stated aim is to generate and distribute critical analysis and reports on the output of the international NGO community for the benefit of government policy makers, journalists, philanthropic organizations and the...
, said that the HRW defense was an "absurd attempt to cast a distinction between soliciting Saudi officials and prominent members of society who owe their very position to the regime."
HRW told IPS
Inter Press Service
Inter Press Service is a global news agency. Its main focus is the production of independent news and analysis about events and processes affecting economic, social and political development....
that the notion "that any money from Saudi Arabia is tainted because it comes from a country with a totalitarian ruling regime is a gross generalisation." adding "The ethnic background of our donors is irrelevant to the work we do,...It's not relevant to our work in Israel that many, many of our donors are Jewish. And it's not relevant for the work that we do that we get money from Arab countries".
According to HRW, its work in Saudi Arabia was discussed at the receptions, including "coverage of women's rights, the juvenile death penalty, domestic workers, and discrimination against religious minorities". HRW also claimed, "No other human rights group has produced a more comprehensive, detailed, and thorough body of work on Saudi Arabian human rights issues in recent years than Human Rights Watch" (HRW Saudi Arabia). Although the Gaza situation was covered, HRW claimed that the coverage was justified as the Gaza war dominated worldwide headlines and is a regional issue in Saudi Arabia. Criticism of HRW as anti-Israel was juxtaposed against the accusations HRW faces in much of the Middle East that HRW is soft on Israeli human rights violations.
In 2008, HRW issued five single-country reports and one multi-country report criticizing the Saudi Arabian government and in August 2009, HRW issued a report "Human Rights and Saudi Arabia's Counterterrorism Response: Religious Counseling, Indefinite Detention, and Flawed Trials" criticizing the Saudi Arabian government's counterterrorism program.
Allegations of anti-Israel bias
Ron Kampeas
Ron Kampeas
Ron Kampeas is the Washington, D.C. bureau chief of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency , "responsible for coordinating coverage in the U.S. capital and analyzing political developments that affect the Jewish world."-Career:...
in an analysis published by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency is an international news agency serving Jewish community newspapers and media around the world. The JTA was founded on February 6, 1917, by Jacob Landau as the Jewish Correspondence Bureau in The Hague with the mandate of collecting and disseminating news among and...
criticizes HRW reports for "Reconstructions of the horrific death of civilians replete with painstakingly gathered evidence are coupled with bewildering omissions of context and blended into a package that assumes an inherent Israeli immorality," and "efforts to turn criticism of individual officers and soldiers into a wholesale indictment of Israel’s military establishment and the decision to resort to military force." According to Kampeas, the HRW reports on the 2009 fighting in Gaza "fail to assess evidence -- including videos of Israeli forces holding their fire because of the presence of civilians -- that Israel has provided to show that such incidents were the exception to the rule; they fail to examine what measures Israel has taken to prevent civilian deaths, which would be pertinent in examining any claim of war crimes."
In October 2009, Robert L. Bernstein
Robert L. Bernstein
-Career in Publishing:Bernstein started as an office boy at Simon & Schuster in 1946, moved to Random House in 1956 and succeeded Bennett Cerf as President and CEO in 1966. He served as the President of Random House for 25 years. He published many great American authors, including William...
, the founder of HRW, criticized the organization's policy in the Middle East in a New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
op-ed. Bernstein questioned the fact that "with increasing frequency, [HRW] casts aside its important distinction between open and closed societies... The region is populated by authoritarian regimes with appalling human rights records. Yet in recent years Human Rights Watch has written far more condemnations of Israel for violations of international law than of any other country in the region." Tom Porteus, director of the London branch of Human Rights Watch, replied that the organization rejected Bernstein's "obvious double standard. Any credible human rights organisation must apply the same human rights standards to all countries." Jane Olson and Jonathan Fanton wrote "we were saddened to see Robert L. Bernstein argue that Israel should be judged by a different human rights standard than the rest of the world" and "as long as open societies commit human rights abuses, Human Rights Watch has a vital role to play in documenting those violations and advocating to bring them to an end." Human Rights Watch noted that Bernstein brought his concerns to the Human Rights Watch Board of Directors in April 2009 and also noted that the board unanimously rejected his view that Human Rights Watch should report only on closed societies, and expressed its full support for the organization's work.
In April 2010, The New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
published a very lengthy and critical piece about HRW, discussing HRW's "giving disproportionate attention to Israeli misdeeds." Specifically, "Robert James - a businessman, World War II veteran, and member of the MENA [Middle East and North Africa Desk of HRW] advisory committee who has been involved with HRW almost since its inception -calls the group 'the greatest NGO since the Red Cross,” but argues that it is chronically incapable of introspection. “Bob [Bernstein, founder and former chair of HRW] is bringing this issue up on Israel,” he says. “But Human Rights Watch has a more basic problem. ... They cannot take criticism.'"
The New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
, referring to Bernstein's OpEd piece in the New York Times, quotes Bernstein, saying, "Yet, as difficult as it was to go public, Bernstein does not believe that Human Rights Watch left him with much choice. 'They think they’ve heard me out,' he says. 'You see, they think they’ve listened to me until they can’t listen anymore. Actually, they haven’t listened at all.'"
In November 2010, Bernstein gave the Shirley and Leonard Goldstein Lecture on Human Rights at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. During this lecture, he accused HRW of "fault[ing] Israel as the principal offender" in the Israel-Palestine conflict and suggested that groups like HRW were responsible for polarization on university campuses.
In December 2010, Jennifer Rubin
Jennifer Rubin (journalist)
Jennifer Rubin is an American columnist and a blogger for the Washington Post. Previously she worked at Commentary Magazine, the Pajamas Media, Human Events, and the Weekly Standard...
, writing in her Washington Post blog, described HRW as "an anti-Israel group masquerading as one devoted to human rights".
Anti-Arab-League or pro-Israel bias
In regard to reporting on the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict
The 2006 Lebanon War, also called the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War and known in Lebanon as the July War #Other uses|Tammūz]]) and in Israel as the Second Lebanon War , was a 34-day military conflict in Lebanon, northern Israel and the Israeli-occupied territories. The principal parties were Hezbollah...
, Israel-based journalist Jonathan Cook
Jonathan Cook
Jonathan Cook is a British writer and a freelance journalist based in Nazareth, Israel, who writes about the Middle East, and more specifically, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.-Background:...
claimed that by making statements regarding the intentions of Israel and Hezbollah to target or to avoid targeting civilians that were not justified by the available evidence, HRW "[seemed to distort] its findings to placate the Israel lobby". Cook stated, 'HRW is accusing Hezbollah of committing graver war crimes than Israel, even though it killed far fewer civilians both numerically and proportionally, because its rockets are "less accurate"'. A representative of HRW responded, defending the organisation's objectivity. Cook countered that he did not criticise the empirical aspects of HRW's research, only its interpretation of that research.
HRW has also been criticised for taking Israel's side in its condemnation of the Palestinian use of human shields. Norman Finkelstein
Norman Finkelstein
Norman Gary Finkelstein is an American political scientist, activist and author. His primary fields of research are the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust. He is a graduate of Binghamton University and received his Ph.D in Political Science from Princeton University...
has criticised HRW for "seeking to appease pro-Israel critics after taking the heat for its report documenting Israeli war crimes in Lebanon?".
Ignoring Islamic laws
A prominent Saudi human rights activist has described the Human Rights Watch report on the rights situation in Saudi Arabia as contradicting the truth in some of its items and does not take into account in many cases the religious background of the people of Saudi Arabia.Human Rights Watch responds to criticism
In the wake of the Goldstone reportUnited Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict
The United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, known as the Goldstone Report, was a team established in April 2009 by the United Nations Human Rights Council during the Gaza War as an independent international fact-finding mission to investigate alleged violations of international...
, HRW accused in 2009 Israel and its supporters of an organized campaign of false allegations and misinformation aimed to discredit the group over its findings over the Gaza War. HRW ties the criticism to a statement by a senior official in the Israeli prime minister's office in June 2009, pledging to "dedicate time and manpower to combating" human rights organisations. HRW said it concluded the criticism amounted to an organized effort since attacks from different sources appeared to be co-ordinated. HRW said that similar language and arguments in criticism implied that there had been prior coordination. Iain Levine of HRW said "We are having to spend a lot of time repudiating the lies, the falsehoods, the misinformation".
A group of 10 Israeli rights groups has protested that the Israeli government has been attempting to "instill fear and silence or alarm vital organizations" that were engaging in free public discourse.
Allegations of bias concerning Africa
HRW has also been accused of unfair and biased reporting of human rights issuesHuman rights in Eritrea
Human rights in Eritrea are viewed as poor. Eritrea is a one-party state in which national legislative elections have been repeatedly postponed, the judiciary is weak, and constitutional provisions protecting individual freedom have yet to be fully implemented. Security forces are responsible for...
in Eritrea
Eritrea
Eritrea , officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea derives it's name from the Greek word Erethria, meaning 'red land'. The capital is Asmara. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast...
and Ethiopia.
Eritrea
In April 2009, HRW published a report that accused the Eritrean governmentPolitics of Eritrea
Politics of Eritrea takes place in a framework of a single-party presidential republic, whereby the Eritrean President of State is both head of state and head of government and a single-party state, led by the People's Front for Democracy and Justice...
of being responsible for serious human rights violations. Sophia Tesfamariam, Director of the US Foundation for the Horn of Africa
Horn of Africa
The Horn of Africa is a peninsula in East Africa that juts hundreds of kilometers into the Arabian Sea and lies along the southern side of the Gulf of Aden. It is the easternmost projection of the African continent...
refuted the allegations in the report which she described as an "anti-Eritrea report" and stated "HRW goes to great lengths to embellish the truth in its attempts to paint a bleak picture of Eritrea and its government". She described it as “not only short on facts and evidence, but also short on intellectual and professional integrity”.
Ethiopia
The Ethiopia government has also raised questions about HRW's methods. It commissioned a report of its own that dismissed Human Rights Watch's allegations of human rights abuses in the OgadenOgaden
Ogaden is the name of a territory comprising the southeastern portion of the Somali Regional State in Ethiopia. The inhabitants are predominantly ethnic Somali and Muslim. The title "Somali Galbeed", which means "Western Somalia," is often preferred by Somali irredentists.The region, which is...
as hearsay and its methods as slapdash.
External links
- The HRW Report on Gujarat: Another Assassination - by Aseem R. Shukla
- Haiti and Human Rights Watch (Joe Emersberger, blogger)
- Michael Barker, "Hijacking Human Rights: A Critical Examination of Human Rights Watch’s Americas Branch and their Links to the ‘Democracy’ Establishment", blog, August 3, 2007.