Like most reasonable people I believe there is a critical need for human rights organizations worldwide. That is, the work of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) is vital to keeping countries in check.
But if anybody believes that Amnesty International and HRW are immune to political pressure and shoddy investigations, then they are terribly naive at best and willfully ignorant at worst.
HRW in particular has a poor track record of monitoring human rights abuses in the Middle East. The best example is HRW’s recent lambasting of the United Nations for removing Saudi Arabia from its blacklist of countries accused of “violating children’s rights.” Saudi Arabia had been accused of causing 60 percent of children’s deaths in the Saudi-Yemeni war — an allegation based on totally wrong and fabricated reports. HRW and Amnesty International accused UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon of surrendering to political manipulation after the Saudi government protested its inclusion on the list.
Both organizations have a long history of pandering to American, British and Israeli interests. HRW was slow in condemning the United States’ invasion of Iraq in 2003 by simply reporting they do not comment on acts of war but concluding the invasion was not a “humanitarian intervention.” On the 10th anniversary of the invasion, HRW issued a much more honest evaluation of the human rights abuses perpetrated by the United Sates and the United Kingdom, but by then it was too little, too late.
The groups’ evaluation of human rights abuses in the West have improved over the years, but the HRW, for example, has been relatively mild in its reports about US’ foreign policy conduct in abuses aside from a 153-page critical evaluation of the CIA’s torture of terror suspects.
Now contrast this treatment of western nations with GCC states in general and Saudi Arabia in particular. I have found both organizations conduct woefully inadequate investigations of alleged “abuses” in Saudi Arabia. Much of the information published on their websites is often five years, if not a decade, old. Since they have no access to Saudi Arabia, they rely on anonymous informants to supply them with data. The information is taken on face value with little or no confirmation and from people who may have an ax to grind against the government. After all, most informants have their self-interests in mind when they supply information to parties in the business of sorting out “abuses.”
An argument can be made that if Saudi Arabia opened itself to investigations by HRW and Amnesty International more accurate reports would be forthcoming. But the fact is neither organization can be trusted to get the information right since they rely regularly on poor sourcing to begin with and publish reports on shaky evidence. Part of the problem is that HRW and Amnesty International are staffed with activists and not independent investigators whose only motive is to conduct an investigation based on facts that can be corroborated and not on hearsay.
So it’s difficult to take seriously the groups’ howling over Saudi Arabia’s removal from the UN blacklist. Given their history of shoddy investigative work, just how can they draw a definitive conclusion that Saudis are bombing schools and hospitals, particularly since the Iranian-backed Houthis occupy the areas in question? The two human rights groups have essentially taken the word of Houthi sympathizers that Saudi Arabia is responsible for the deaths of children without considering that Yemeni civilians died as a result of shelling by the Houthis.
But if anybody believes that Amnesty International and HRW are immune to political pressure and shoddy investigations, then they are terribly naive at best and willfully ignorant at worst.
HRW in particular has a poor track record of monitoring human rights abuses in the Middle East. The best example is HRW’s recent lambasting of the United Nations for removing Saudi Arabia from its blacklist of countries accused of “violating children’s rights.” Saudi Arabia had been accused of causing 60 percent of children’s deaths in the Saudi-Yemeni war — an allegation based on totally wrong and fabricated reports. HRW and Amnesty International accused UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon of surrendering to political manipulation after the Saudi government protested its inclusion on the list.
Both organizations have a long history of pandering to American, British and Israeli interests. HRW was slow in condemning the United States’ invasion of Iraq in 2003 by simply reporting they do not comment on acts of war but concluding the invasion was not a “humanitarian intervention.” On the 10th anniversary of the invasion, HRW issued a much more honest evaluation of the human rights abuses perpetrated by the United Sates and the United Kingdom, but by then it was too little, too late.
The groups’ evaluation of human rights abuses in the West have improved over the years, but the HRW, for example, has been relatively mild in its reports about US’ foreign policy conduct in abuses aside from a 153-page critical evaluation of the CIA’s torture of terror suspects.
Now contrast this treatment of western nations with GCC states in general and Saudi Arabia in particular. I have found both organizations conduct woefully inadequate investigations of alleged “abuses” in Saudi Arabia. Much of the information published on their websites is often five years, if not a decade, old. Since they have no access to Saudi Arabia, they rely on anonymous informants to supply them with data. The information is taken on face value with little or no confirmation and from people who may have an ax to grind against the government. After all, most informants have their self-interests in mind when they supply information to parties in the business of sorting out “abuses.”
An argument can be made that if Saudi Arabia opened itself to investigations by HRW and Amnesty International more accurate reports would be forthcoming. But the fact is neither organization can be trusted to get the information right since they rely regularly on poor sourcing to begin with and publish reports on shaky evidence. Part of the problem is that HRW and Amnesty International are staffed with activists and not independent investigators whose only motive is to conduct an investigation based on facts that can be corroborated and not on hearsay.
So it’s difficult to take seriously the groups’ howling over Saudi Arabia’s removal from the UN blacklist. Given their history of shoddy investigative work, just how can they draw a definitive conclusion that Saudis are bombing schools and hospitals, particularly since the Iranian-backed Houthis occupy the areas in question? The two human rights groups have essentially taken the word of Houthi sympathizers that Saudi Arabia is responsible for the deaths of children without considering that Yemeni civilians died as a result of shelling by the Houthis.
