Human Rights Watch

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Not to be confused with Bahrain Human Rights Watch Society.
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Human Rights Watch is one of the world's leading international non-governmental organizations that conduct research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo, Toronto, and Washington D.C.[1]

Contents

[edit] History

Human Rights Watch was founded under the name Helsinki Watch in 1978 to monitor the former Soviet Union's compliance with the Helsinki Accords. As the organization grew, it formed other "watch committees" to cover other regions of the world. In 1988, all of the committees were united under one umbrella to form Human Rights Watch. Robert L. Bernstein was a president of the organization and is one of the original founders, along with Jeri Laber, and several others.

[edit] Profile

Pursuant to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Human Rights Watch opposes violations of basic human rights, which include capital punishment and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Human Rights Watch advocates freedoms in connection with fundamental human rights, such as freedom of religion and the press.

Human Rights Watch produces research reports on violations of international human rights norms as set out by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and what it perceives to be other internationally-accepted human rights norms. These reports are used as the basis for drawing international attention to abuses and pressuring governments and international organizations to reform. Researchers conduct fact-finding missions to investigate suspect situations and generate coverage in local and international media. Issues raised by Human Rights Watch in its reports include social and gender discrimination, torture, military use of children, political corruption, abuses in criminal justice systems, and the legalization of abortion. Human Rights Watch documents and reports violations of the laws of war and international humanitarian law.

Human Rights Watch also supports writers worldwide who are being persecuted for their work and are in need of financial assistance. The Hellman/Hammett grants are financed by the estate of the playwright Lillian Hellman in funds set up in her name and that of her long-time companion, the novelist Dashiell Hammett. In addition to providing financial assistance, the Hellman/Hammett grants help raise international awareness of activists who are being silenced for speaking out in defence of human rights.[2]

Each year, Human Rights Watch presents the Human Rights Defenders Award to activists around the world who demonstrate leadership and courage in defending human rights. The award winners work closely with Human Rights Watch in investigating and exposing human rights abuses.[3]

Human Rights Watch was one of six international NGOs that founded the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers in 1998. It is also the co-chair of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, a global coalition of civil society groups that successfully lobbied to introduce the Ottawa Treaty, a treaty that prohibits the use of anti-personnel landmines.

Human Rights Watch is a founding member of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange, a global network of non-governmental organizations that monitor censorship worldwide.

Human Rights Watch has more than 230 paid staff, and a budget of over US$30 million a year.[4]

The current executive director of Human Rights Watch is Kenneth Roth. He has held this position since 1993. Roth is a graduate of Yale Law School and Brown University. His father fled Nazi Germany in 1938. Roth started working on human rights after the declaration of martial law in Poland in 1981, and later became engaged in Haiti issues.[5]

[edit] Issues and campaigns

[edit] Recent

Human Rights Watch made recent headlines by criticizing the Jordanian government for arresting elected officials who praised Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, at ceremonies held in response to his death. Human Rights Watch also spoke out against the mass killings and government-imposed famines during the last decade of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's rule.[6]

On July 26, 2007 HRW denounced that hundreds of migrant children held in emergency centers in the Spanish Canary Islands are living in squalid, overcrowded conditions and face the risk of abuse from their custodians and other children. The Canary Islands government, which runs the facilities, replied in a statement[7] that the report lacked "rigor" and that "an internal investigation had failed to corroborate" Human Rights Watch's findings.

On February 6, 2009 The Guardian reported the HRW researcher Rachel Reid saying that Colonel Owen McNally had been flown back from Afghanistan to Britain "where he will reportedly be interviewed by military police".[8] It further reported that Britain's Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom) had told media that Reid was the recipient of secrets, although Reid stated that she had met Col McNally only twice, both times in a purely professional capacity, both times at the Nato military HQ in Kabul. In the same article Reid asked "Why was my name released to the media by the MoD, with a libel that our relationship was "close"? They would know exactly what impression they were creating, and presumably decided that my reputatation was expendable in order to ensure coverage of their "story"".

[edit] Publications

Human Rights Watch World Report 2007

Human Rights Watch publishes reports on several topics[9] and compiles annual reports ("World Report") presenting an overview of the worldwide state of human rights.

Human Rights Watch has published extensively on the Rwandan Genocide of 1994[10] and the conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.[11]

[edit] Comparison with Amnesty International

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are the only two western-oriented international human rights organizations operating worldwide in most situations of severe oppression or abuse. Though close allies, the two groups play complementary roles, reflecting a division of labour[citation needed]. The major differences lie in the groups’ structure and methods for promoting change.

Amnesty International is a mass-membership organization. Mobilization of those members is the organization's central advocacy tool. Human Rights Watch's main products are its crisis-directed research and lengthy reports, whereas Amnesty lobbies and writes detailed reports, but also focuses on mass letter-writing campaigns, adopting individuals as "prisoners of conscience" and lobbying for their release. Human Rights Watch will openly lobby for specific actions for other governments to take against human rights offenders, including naming specific individuals for arrest, or for sanctions to be levied against certain countries, recently calling for punitive sanctions against the top leaders in Sudan who have overseen a killing campaign in Darfur. The group has also called for human rights activists who have been detained in Sudan to be released.[12].

Its documentations of human rights abuses often include extensive analyses of the political and historical backgrounds of the conflicts concerned, some of which have been published in academic journals. AI's reports, on the other hand, tend to contain less analysis, and instead focus on specific abuses of rights.

[edit] Sanctions

[edit] Allegations of biased reporting on Ethiopia

The government of Ethiopia has accused HRW of one-sided reporting that fails to document abuses committed by anti-government insurgents. According to the government, HRW may have inadvertently made itself a tool of the insurgent Islamist Ogaden National Liberation Front. As a result, Ethiopia has enacted a law restricting human rights workers in organizations, including HRW, that get more than 10% of their funding from abroad from engaging in political, democracy, justice and human rights work.[13]

[edit] Criticisms

Main article: Criticism of Human Rights Watch

Criticism of Human Rights Watch may be classified into two major categories: accusations of selection bias and accusations of ideological bias. In the first category, the Asian Tribune has praised NGO Monitor for pointing out the inherent bias of HRW against open, democratic regimes where journalists and citizens can monitor abuses, and abusive regimes that disallow monitoring.[14] In the second category, Human Rights Watch has been criticized for perceived anti-Western, anti-China, anti-Serb[citation needed], anti-Sri Lankan[15] [16] and anti-Israel bias while others[who?] have criticized it for having a pro-Western and pro-Israel[citation needed] bias. According to a report in the Egyptian press, "the government often accuses human rights groups [including Human Rights Watch] of importing a Western agenda that offends local religious and cultural values."[17].

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Frequently Asked Questions". Human Rights Watch. http://www.hrw.org/en/node/75138. 
  2. ^ Hellman-Hammett Grants,Human Rights Watch
  3. ^ [1],Human Rights Watch
  4. ^ Financial statement,Human Rights Watch
  5. ^ Kenneth Roth Bio,Human Rights Watch
  6. ^ Middle east and North Africa,Human Rights Watch
  7. ^ Human Rights Watch says migrant children are at risk in Canary Islands,International Herald Tribune
  8. ^ With a nudge and a wink, Mod has dragged me through the mud,The Guardian
  9. ^ Publications,Human Rights Watch
  10. ^ Rwandan genocide report,Human Rights Watch
  11. ^ Congo report,Human Rights Watch
  12. ^ Human rights group says activisits detained in Sudan
  13. ^ The government says Human Rights Watch got it Wrong. Really? Economist Feb 7, 2009, p. 41
  14. ^ "Amnesty International’s Credibility Challenged: “Biased Against Democratic Governments Relative to the Guerrillas,” 2007-05-26, Asian Tribune, [2]
  15. ^ Human Rights Watch hell-bent on attacking Sri Lankan government
  16. ^ Human Right Watch is now trying to block the IMF loan
  17. ^ Not just the Queen Boat: HRW is asking the Egyptian government to stop persecuting homosexuals and commit to reform

[edit] External links

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