Jul 16 2014
Human Rights Watch is Roundly Criticized By… Human Rights Activists
Human Rights Watch, a group that claims to “defend the rights of people worldwide” has come under fire from two Nobel Peace Laureates and a hundred other scholars and human rights activists. Among the criticisms against Human Rights Watch are its ‘revolving door’ hiring policy from the US Government, its failure to denounce the practice of extrajudicial rendition, its endorsement of US military intervention in Libya and its silence during the 2004 coup d’etat in Haiti.
A letter was originally written in May by Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Prize winning activist from Northern Ireland and Argentinian activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Perez Esquivel criticizing the group. In June the Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, responded to their criticism as “misplaced” and rejected the recommendations they put forth.
Now, Maguire, Esquivel and others have written a second letter urging Human Rights Watch to take their concerns into serious consideration.
GUEST: Mairead Maguire, peace activist from Northern Ireland, co-founder of the group Women for Peace, which later became the Community for Peace People, an organisation dedicated to encouraging a peaceful resolution of the situation in Northern Ireland. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976 and has continued her work on many social justice issues.
Click here to read the letter from Maguire and others to Human Rights Watch.
Comments Off on Human Rights Watch is Roundly Criticized By… Human Rights Activists
