HUMAN RIGHTS
WATCH
Human
Rights Watch (HRW) was founded in 1988 but its origins
date to a seminal event in Cold War history, the Conference
on Security and Cooperation in Europe which was held in
'neutral' Helsinki, Finland in July/August 1975. The Soviets
went along with it because the Helsinki Accords, as the
final agreement of this star-studded conference was popularly
known, recognized contemporary national borders as being
set and inviolable, thereby confirming Soviet suzerainty
in Eastern Europe. The Americans and their European allies,
for their part, pressed by a nervous West Germany, were
happy to see a ratcheting down of tensions in Europe.
No
sooner had the ink dried, the CIA, the KGB, and allied
masters of the dark arts started undermining the pact.
The 'civil rights' portion of the agreement, which the
Soviets had agreed to with great reluctance, was soon
being used by the West as a cat's paw to undermine Soviet
power, especially in Eastern Europe. The Moscow Helsinki
Watch Group spawned 'human rights' groups in Eastern European
capitals. Typically, Western countries pronounced themselves
quite beyond the need of such patronizing supervision.
Human
Rights Watch descended directly from these NGOs that poked
about in the Soviet Union's nether regions. Its New York
base probably reflects its old CIA affiliations. Be that
as it may, HRW has done stellar work around the world
during the last 20 years in calling out when groups violate
'human rights' (as it defines them). And there's the rub;
human rights for people with Judaeo-Christian sensibilities
are not necessarily the same as those of people with other
backgrounds. The right to life itself surely overrides
more pedestrian rights like the right to free expression,
for free movement, etc. but HRW often forgets that. And
'Western' causes get a relatively free ride; the weak
protests of HRW during Israeli outrages against the Palestinian
people contrast starkly with its vehemence against Sri
Lanka.
-Read Full Story- (HRWW)
|
Singapore
rejects HRW report on maids' condition
Singapore Ministry of Manpower ( MOM) reiterated Thursday that a report
by the Human Rights Watch ( HRW) grossly exaggerates and misrepresents
maids' condition in the city state. "Your report grossly exaggerates
and misrepresents the state of 150,000 FDWs (foreign domestic workers)
who choose to work in Singapore because of better conditions here,"
Jean Tan, press secretary to the minister for Manpower said in a letter.
In response to a HRW letter to Singapore Manpower Minister Ng Eng Hen
issued on the same day, Tan noted that HRW repeats " baseless allegations
of 'systemic patterns of mistreatment' and ' rampant abuse' of FDWs
in Singapore" while acknowledging that "no data exists to calculate
the number of migrant domestic workers who confront labor rights and
other human rights violations." "With such flawed standards of research
and reporting, it would be difficult to treat your findings and conclusions
seriously," Tan said. HRW, in its letter to Ng, claimed that FDWs do
not receive equal protection under Singapore's labor laws, adding that
its conclusions are based on extensive research and consultation, its
interviews and review of case studies of 90 domestic workers, as well
as information provided by the governments of Singapore, Indonesia,
the Philippines, and Sri Lanka. .-Full
Report-(english.peopledaily.com.cn-09/12/05)
Human
Rights Watch Creating the pretext for U.S. intervention
By Heather Cottin
The ruling class has never had much trouble with hypocrisy. Thomas Jefferson
wrote the Declaration of Independence extolling the 18th century Enlightenment
doctrine of natural rights of "Life, liberty and happiness" while he
owned scores of slaves and defended the institution of slavery. Today,
George Soros's Human Rights Watch upholds Jefferson's legacy of deceit,
murder and plunder for the ruling class of the 21st century. In 1975,
"Helsinki Watch" was created to monitor what it termed "human rights
abuses." It was the main institution that spread anti-Soviet propaganda.
With the support of financier George Soros, the organization grew into
what is now called Human Rights Watch. -Full
Report-(workers.org-)
China
Indignant over HRW's Report:
Spokeswoman China is strongly indignant over the deliberate defaming
and vicious attack of the US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) on China's
human rights status. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue
made the remark at a press conference Tuesday, December 12, in response
to a question regarding the so-called "Human Rights Report" released
by HRW recently. The HRW slandered China with fabrications on its human
rights situation in the report, Zhang said. She pointed out that the
Chinese government values the promotion and protection of human rights
and the basic freedom of the Chinese people. -Full
Report-(people.com.cn-12/00)
HK
refutes Human Rights Watch report
Allegations contained in the Human Rights Watch report relating
to Hong Kong are groundless, with complete disregard of fundamental
facts, a spokesman of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
(HKSAR) government said in Hong Kong Friday. .-Full
Report-(chinadaily.com.cn-)
Hijacking
Human Rights
By Michael Barker
August 03, 2007 -Human Rights Watch (HRW) is one of the latter
such organizations, and as a highly regarded and influential international
nongovernmental organization (NGO), it is vital that its global
work be regularly examined to ensure that it remains true to it's
stated humanitarian mission. Simply put, this is because as Jonathan
Cook writes: "The measure of a human rights organisation is to
be found not just in the strides it takes to seek justice for
the oppressed and victimised but also in the compromises it makes
to keep itself out of trouble. Because of the business that human
rights defenders are in, they must be held to a standard higher
than we demand of others."[2] -Full
Story- (zmag.org)
Human
Rights Watch as a Political Instrument of Liberal Cosmopolitan
Elite of the United States of America
Co-operation of Russian and western human rights activists depends
not only on their professional solidarity but on their ideological
closeness of interests, sometimes - closeness of their goals.
-Full
Report-(pravoslavie.ru-19/11/04)
O'Reilly
smeared "very shadowy" Human Rights Watch
FOX News Channel and radio host Bill O'Reilly called the group Human Rights
Watch (HRW) "very shadowy" and claimed that "they don't tell you where
their money comes from" because the group "knows how they're perceived
by most Americans." In fact, HRW's website freely discloses its donors.
Later, O'Reilly's guest from the conservative Heritage Foundation complained
that HRW has focused narrowly on "Abu Ghraib, Abu Ghraib, Abu Ghraib"
(prison in Iraq) and "Gitmo, Gitmo, Gitmo" (Guantánamo Bay, Cuba), where
Americans have been accused of abuses, rather than "using their scarce
resources to really shine the light on these places around the world where
there truly are human rights abuses" like China, Syria, and Sudan. In
fact, Human Rights Watch does extensive research and advocacy on these
nations and scores of others. -Full
Report-(mediamatters.org-Fri,
Nov 19, 2004)
Who
is behind Human Rights Watch? (2004)
Under President Clinton, Human Rights Watch
was the most influential pro-intervention lobby: its 'anti-atrocity crusade'
helped drive the wars in ex-Yugoslavia. Under George W. Bush it lost influence
to the neoconservatives, who have their own crusades. But the 'two interventionisms'
are not so different anyway: Human Rights Watch is founded on belief in
the superiority of American values. It has close links to the US foreign
policy elite, and to other interventionist and expansionist lobbies. .-Full
Report-(web.inter.nl.net-).-Full
Report-(forfolksake.com-29/08/08)
Why
human rights are wrong
Paul
Treanor,
Human rights conflict with the principle of
moral autonomy, and form an excuse for oppression. Any harm to others
can be justified by claiming that it is intended to respect certain 'rights',
even if the victim does not know of their existence. Revised June 2004. -Full
Report-(web.inter.nl.net-)
I
renounce my human rights
Paul Treanor, 7 September 1999
The first online renunciation of human rights by an individual, written
in the immediate aftermath of the Kosovo war. Since then, the crusade
in the name of such liberal ideologies has intensified. The supporters
of human rights believe that they are morally entitled to conquer the
world - and they have begun to do so. .-Full
Report-(web.inter.nl.net-) |
