Showing posts with label HRW. Show all posts
Showing posts with label HRW. Show all posts

Amazing: 'Human rights watch' actually realizes Gaza 'Palestinians' commit war crimes

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(Carl) Well, isn't this amazing? 'Human rights watch' has finally figured out that Hamas and other 'Palestinian' terror groups committed war crimes by shooting rockets from civilian areas in Gaza to civilian areas in Israel during Operation Pillar of Defense.
“Palestinian armed groups made clear in their statements that harming civilians was their aim,” said HRW's Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson. “There is simply no legal justification for launching rockets at populated areas.”
The group also found that Gazan groups, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Resistance Committee, justified targeting civilian centers as reprisal for Israeli strikes, an act also banned under international law.
Furthermore, such groups "repeatedly fired rockets from densely populated areas, near homes, businesses, and a hotel, unnecessarily placing civilians in the vicinity at grave risk from Israeli counter-fire," the report said.
The detailed report included examples of rockets being launched from densely populated areas in Gaza, and noted that groups fired from underground tunnels with hatches for the first time. HRW faulted Palestinian armed groups for failing to alert civilians or urge them to evacuate prior to launching rockets in their vicinity.
As the ruling power in the Strip, the human rights group said, Hamas was responsible for reining in the behavior of other groups.
“As the ruling authority in Gaza, Hamas has an obligation to stop unlawful attacks and punish those responsible,” Whitson said.
But lest you get your hopes up for a Goldstone or other style of inquiry into these human rights violations....
A week earlier, HRW reported that Israeli attacks on journalists and media facilities during the operation also violated laws of war, saying that Israel provided no specific information to justify claims that they were military targets.
“Just because Israel says a journalist was a fighter or a TV station was a command center does not make it so,” Whitson said. “Journalists who praise Hamas and TV stations that applaud attacks on Israel may be propagandists, but that does not make them legitimate targets under the laws of war.”
Well yeah, except that Israel did provide evidence, and Hamas' al-Aqsa television is a designated terror organization.

The dark knights of human rights

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The dark knights of human rights (Itai Reuveni)
Just over two weeks ago, there was a report about a Jewish woman in Iran who, for years, had been harassed by her Muslim neighbors who demanded that she evacuate her home to make room for a mosque. The woman was ultimately stabbed to death, and her body dismembered.

About a month ago, an Iranian human rights activist of Arab descent was tortured to death at a notorious Iranian prison. Add to that the testimony of a senior Revolutionary Guards officer who defected to the U.S., indicating that every woman who is sentenced to death in Iran is first raped so that she won't enter heaven a virgin.

These are just a handful of examples out of thousands of human rights violations in Iran. This raises a disturbing question: Where are the human rights organizations? Where are the condemnation campaigns and calls for boycotts? Where are the threats to take senior Iranian officials to the International Court of Justice? Where are the enormous budgets? Shouldn't there be lobbies crowding the halls of the U.N. and EU institutions?

The concept of "human rights" — founded on universal principles — has lost its moral significance and has now become merely a tool utilized by nongovernmental organizations as a means of obtaining political objectives. This exploitation, compounded by the blatant disregard for any facts that do not fall into line with the activists' views, encourages nations like Iran to keep doing what they are doing. Human rights organizations have been commandeered by a handful of extremists who seek to advance a political ideology rather than protecting the world's citizens, whether they are Iranian or Syrian, Palestinian or Israeli.

Iran is usually mentioned in the context of a security threat. The various organizations are only reminded of Iran in the context of Israel. There are nearly no campaigns for human rights in Iran — you can count the ones that do exist on the fingers of one hand. And so Iran, where, according to its president, there are no homosexuals or lesbians (and if there are, they are hanged in the city square), and where acid is squirted on protesters, and where men and women are raped in prison, and where the national sports are soccer and stoning people, keeps on abusing human rights. For their part, the human rights organizations argue that they don't have the resources to take action within a closed society. Why take a risk when you can protest in Bil'in in the morning and have a beer in Tel Aviv that same afternoon?

These organizations fail to realize that human rights are inextricably linked to the strength of a society, even when said society exists under a sadistic tyrannical regime. Many people may find this surprising, but there is a strong, flourishing civil society in Iran, with a long, rich history of organizing: from the 1890 Tobacco Protest to the struggles over the constitution and the country's oil, through to the 1979 Islamic Revolution all the way to the 2009 Iranian Election Protests and the creation of the Iranian Green Movement. This is a country with a rich social history and with a fascinating language and culture. But its freedom-seeking citizens have been abandoned by the knights of human rights, the knights who populate those organizations with the enormous budgets of hundreds of millions of dollars and with worldwide infrastructure and with ideologically motivated activists. These organizations allocate a large portion of their resources to the one-sided cheerleading squad for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in complete disproportion to all the other human rights violations around the world.

For example: Robert Bernstein, the founder of Human Rights Watch, harshly criticized the very organization he founded in a New York Times op-ed several years ago. Bernstein criticized the organization for ignoring human rights violations in closed societies, for its anti-Israeli bias and for "issuing reports on the Israeli-Arab conflict that are helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state." He wrote this op-ed after a 2009 fundraising event in Saudi Arabia, organized by Human Rights Watch, in which anti-Israel rhetoric was used to raise money. That same year, a senior organization official visited Libya and praised Moammar Gadhafi's son, calling him a reformer and leader of the Libyan Spring.

Today, international Human Rights Day, the human rights organizations need to do some soul searching and really check whether the allocation of their resources truly reflects the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted by the U.N. on Dec. 10, 1948). They need to ask themselves whether the concentration of efforts to bash Israel and the disregard for violations in other countries truly contributes to the human rights of any group, or rather serves to alienate the public, to belittle the concept of human rights and to encourage rights violations in places like Iran.

If we honestly care about human rights, we must liberate the concept from the hands of those who have tried to commandeer it.
http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=3032

Ken Roth Flip-Flop: HRW Promised ICC Wouldn’t Target Israel, Yet Now Lobbies for It at View from Geneva

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Will the International Criminal Court be used as a political weapon against Israel? Should it?
In 2001, when trying to convince Americans to buy into the ICC, Human Rights Watch promised one thing; now it actively lobbies for the opposite.
Today, Human Rights Watch director Ken Roth criticized a New York Times editorial that he says “ignores key effect of Palestine observer state: possibility of joining [the] ICC and deterring both sides’ war crimes.”
NYTimes ignores key effect of Palestine observer state: possibility of joining & deterring both sides' war crimes. trib.al/N5ZImN
This is hardly the first time that Human Rights Watch has justified and supported the Palestinian attempt to use the International Criminal Court in The Hague to pursue politically motivated cases against Israel:
  • On September 16, 2009, miraculously within less than 24 hours after Judge Richard Goldstone released his notorious U.N. report accusing Israel of war crimes (which he retracted some 18 months later), Human Rights Watch published a detailed press release that “supported the fact-finding mission’s call for the Security Council to refer the Gaza conflict to the ICC”; argued that the ICC was “the obvious international tribunal for war crimes committed during the Gaza conflict”; and documented all of the possible ways that Israeli political and military leaders could be hauled before the ICC, including “if the ICC prosecutor acts positively on a declaration by the Palestinian National Authority requesting the court’s authority over crimes committed in Gaza.”
  • While HRW was sometimes cagey on expressing outright support for the formal ICC request submitted by the PA (or rather the PNA, the Palestinian National Authority, as per HRW) there was no mistaking where they stood: “Human Rights Watch called on the ICC prosecutor to make a prompt legal determination on the Palestinian National Authority request, consistent with the ICC’s mandate to end impunity.” Hard to see how that last bit (emphasis added) could be read as anything but outright support.
  • In a September 2010 speech to the UN Human Rights Council, HRW called on the 47-nation body to “urge the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to determine in a prompt manner whether he believes the court has jurisdiction over the Gaza conflict.  Such a determination will clarify the avenues of international justice available.” Again, HRW made it clear how they wanted the jurisdiction question to be decided: “the parties to varying degrees have thus far not shown a willingness to conduct investigations up to international standards, so international prosecutions may be required.” Indeed, peace talks “in no way lessen the need for accountability.  On the contrary, justice for serious violations should be part of the discussion.”
What is so interesting about all of this is that back in 2001, when Americans were debating whether or not to join and support the ICC, Ken Roth’s Human Rights Watch published “Myths and Facts About the International Criminal Court,” and assured the public that the ICC would never “be used to pursue politically motivated cases against Israel.” This concern was nothing but a “myth,” said Human Rights Watch.

And one of the reasons it wouldn’t happen was because of these “Facts”:  “Future actions on Israeli or Palestinian territory will be covered only if the ICC treaty is ratified by Israel or by a broadly recognized Palestinian state.”
And as HRW’s Tom Malinowski assured us all in a Washington Post op-ed, “That will not happen until after a peace agreement, in which case the likelihood of Israeli military action against Palestinians greatly diminishes.”
Fast forward 11 years. HRW’s Ken Roth is now lobbying for the Palestinian bid to become a U.N. state and ICC member before a peace agreement — and indeed while the PA (or PNA, per HRW) has refused to even sit at the negotiating table with Israel. What happened to their “that will not happen” promise?

Lawfare Defeat for NGOs at ICC doesn't make me feel safe at all

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(h/t israpundit) Prosecutor’s Office rejects jurisdiction of “Palestine,” and echoes NGO Monitor’s legal brief
Media_httpuploadwikim_gtodjJERUSALEM – In a key defeat for NGO “lawfare” in the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) today decided that it does not have jurisdiction to begin an investigation over cases related to the 2008-09 Gaza War because “Palestine” is not a state. In January 2009, the Palestinian Authority (PA) filed a letter with the Court, purporting to accept the ICC’s jurisdiction in order to bring war crimes cases against Israeli officials, notes Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor, which was involved in the case from the outset.

“Throughout this process, the ICC – created to punish the worst perpetrators of war crimes and mass murder – was exploited by several EU- and European-government funded non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which intensively lobbied the OTP as part of their campaign to attack the legitimacy of the State of Israel,” says Anne Herzberg, legal advisor for NGO Monitor. “The NGOs Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Al Haq, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, Federation Internationale des Ligues des Droits de l´Homme (FIDH), and Adalah campaigned at the ICC in support of the Palestinian Authority’s political goals. This clearly was contradictory to the spirit and substance of peace negotiations.”
On behalf of NGO Monitor, Herzberg submitted a legal brief on the case. The brief argued that the ICC’s jurisdiction is defined by the 1998 Rome Statute, which makes clear that only states can accept the Court’s jurisdiction. The Statute was adopted after years of careful diplomatic negotiations, and allowing the PA to fall under the Court’s jurisdiction would have essentially amounted to a re-writing of the Statute. In addition, the brief argued that, contrary to claims by NGO proponents of the PA initiative, the ICC was not established as a court of universal jurisdiction, and NGO attempts to transform it into such would be legally improper. The OTP used similar arguments to support its decision.
“The fact that the case even proceeded this far was clear legal overreaching, but it shows the strength of NGOs that lead the de-legitimization and demonization campaigns against Israel,” adds Herzberg. “The OTP’s decision today is a strong rebuke to these NGOs, their political agenda, and their campaign to isolate Israel from the international community,” notes Herzberg. “International arenas are routinely hijacked for political purposes, but today’s decision was markedly different.”
it should of never come down to a technicality like this. Jews have a right to protect themselves even if it were a state. Shortly it will be the Muslim Brotherhood running things in Egypt. If Israel defends it's civilians from rocket fire it is their right to do so. Technically speaking... the rules of this court are obscene. During the Holocaust the Jews did not have a state. Is the court saying that this technicality could of been used to protect Nazis if the legal precedent of today existed during World War II? It's a little obtuse. People that initiate violence through terror... should be responded to as Israel did, regardless of the civilians they hide behind.

Russia slams US criticism of 'gay propaganda' bill

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Media_httpwwwmontreal_fwyif
(Montreal Gazette / Photograph by: Alexander Natruskin, Reuters )
With the Arab Spring evolving into an Islamic winter, the Obama administration tries foreign policy one more time... nonintervention... yeah... Obama... right. wink wink...¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Police detain a gay rights activist holding a puppet of Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov during an unsanctioned protest in Moscow September 21, 2010.

MOSCOW - A top Russian diplomat reacted angrily on Tuesday after the United States strongly criticized a controversial bill backed by the ruling party that calls for a ban on "homosexual propaganda."
"We view with bewilderment the American side's attempts to interfere, what's more, publicly, in the lawmaking process," foreign ministry representative for human rights, Konstantin Dolgov, told the Interfax news agency.
He dismissed as "inappropriate" comments by the US State Department last week that it was "deeply concerned" by the bill, proposed by the ruling United Russia party at the legislature of the northwestern city of Saint Petersburg.
The vaguely worded bill would introduce fines of up to 50,000 rubles ($1,598) for "public acts" promoting homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality and transgender identity.
Gay activists warn that it could be used to ban any campaign for gay rights.
Homosexuality was decriminalized in Russia in 1993, although day-to-day homophobia is still rife and attempts to hold gay pride marches have been dispersed roughly by riot police.
Legislators passed the bill in its first reading earlier this month and was expected to have its crucial second reading on Wednesday. If passed, it would then need to be approved in a final reading seen as a technicality.
But the bill's author told Russian news agencies on Tuesday the second reading was likely to be postponed until after parliamentary polls on December 4.
"Tomorrow they will not look at second readings (of bills)," Vitaly Milonov of United Russia told Interfax.
Human Rights Watch, a New York-based campaign group, condemned the bill in a statement released late Monday as "draconian."
Arkhangelsk, a city in northern Russia, has already enacted similar legislation.
in 2003 much of the left pointed out that Russia did not support our involvement in Iraq. What we forget is what Russia really was irked about was our invasion in the Balkens. Ah... the web those liberals weave for the Conservatives when the government crashes and burns

Human shields surround Iranian nuke plant

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(EOZ) Hundreds of students on Tuesday formed a human chain around the uranium conversion plant in central Iran, in a demonstration staged by students to show that Iranians were ready to sacrifice their lives if the nuclear sites were attacked by Israel.
After holding a noon prayer session in front of the plant's main gate, students from Isfahan universities shouted "Death to Israel" and "Death to America." They vowed to resist in the event of an attack.
There is a small body of literature on the legal status of voluntary human shields. If they are protecting an unquestioned military installation or target, according to most (except HRW) they forfeit their status as civilians and become considered combatants under international law. If they are shielding a dual-use facility, which would include nuclear research and nuclear material refining, it appears that they would maintain their status as civilians.

Qaddafi Forces Suspected Of Executing Detainees

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With time running out, Qaddafi forces get desperate and start killing prisoners.

Six bodies lie in the dry riverbed between Gargur and Bab al-Aziziya, Gaddafi's former compound. © 2011 Human Rights Watch


A team of volunteers arrive to recover the bodies of the dead found in and around a makeshift field clinic outside Bab al-Aziziya where there were signs that Gaddafi loyalists had been present. © 2011 Human Rights Watch

The body of a dead man at the makeshift field clinic outside Bab al-Aziziya. © 2011 Human Rights Watch
The body of a dead man lies with his hands tied behind his back in the dry riverbed between Gargur and Bab al-Aziziya. © 2011 Human Rights Watch






Corpses in the tents behind the makeshift field clinic outside Bab al-Aziziya.© 2011 Human Rights Watch


A truck holds the bodies of the dead from in and around the makeshift field clinic outside Bab al-Aziziya. © 2011 Human Rights Watch



Two bodies found in the closet under the stairs inside the Al-Amal al-Akhdar building belonging to the Libyan Internal Security.© 2011 Human Rights Watch


...isn't everyone just HAPPY that the NYTimes tried to promote Qaddafi as a reformer?


Where Is Human Rights Watch? Worried about Censorship!

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To alleviate restrictions on freedom of expression, HRW urged him [Assad] to “stop blocking websites for their content.” In a contemporaneous op-ed article, "Syria's decade of repression” (The Guardian, 16 July 2010), HRW researcher Nadim Houry concludes with gentle prodding of Assad: “his legacy will ultimately depend on whether he will act on the promises” of reform he made upon taking office. “Otherwise, he will merely be remembered for extending his father’s...government by repression.
NAUGHTY NAUGHTY NAUGHTY... Syria's big Boo Boo was Censorship? One would think Assad was about as bad as the feminists in Washington State. It's almost like a light prodding by a progressive activist to a liberal government. Because in the world of Human Rights Watch... there might be a reason for censorship, but Syria just needed to be encouraged to do a more progressive thing.

Human Rights Watch has been poorly prepared in dealing with the slaughter of protesters by Assad--and it shows:
Since the Arab Spring awoke at the end of 2010, HRW has quickly expanded to cover developments and violations in Egypt, Libya, and elsewhere. HRW’s lack of preparation, foresight, and capacity is obvious. Indeed, the international media have relied entirely on local activists; as a source of information, HRW is entirely irrelevant. 
Human Rights Watch released 51 documents on “Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.” At the same time, HRW released just 12 such documents on Syria. Similarly, while HRW released 3 “single country reports” on Israel, to one short report on Syria. says Daled Amos.

Global: Torture in Drug Treatment Detentions

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20733_full_Kunming Municipal Compulsory Rehabilitation CentreIn China convicted drug users are required to complete at least 2 years in their drug rehab program, a span of time that is filled with forced labor, physical abuse and no drug treatment according to many who’ve completed the program many of whom say they are haunted by the experience. via hometestingblog.testcountry.com
People detained in these centers are denied medical care that has been proven effective and subjected to physical and sexual violence, forced labor, and involuntary or experimental medical procedures, the campaign said.  A 36-page report, "Treated with Cruelty: Abuses in the Name of Drug Rehabilitation," compiles personal testimony by detainees in Russia, China, Cambodia, and Mexico. A 64-page publication, "Treatment or Torture?: Applying International Human Rights Standards to Drug Detention Centers," reviews the multiple forms of abuse common in drug detention centers and shows how these practices in many cases constitute torture, or at least cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment - in violation of basic human rights treaties widely ratified by most nations worldwide. via hrw.org
by the way... the links from HRW go to George Soros... who was the one who spent the money so we would be in debt to China.  I'm sure our country will degrade to this standard of abuse when our society crumbles.  Till then... I'm just another Marijuana smoking Conservative.

Obama's efforts to reform the UN Human Rights Council have failed miserably:

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UNHRC's anti-Israel agenda prevails...

Muslim nations voted against the measure: denouncing discrimination against homosexuals and women... yes indeed. This is what the United Nations puts on a pedestal for human rights.  Muslim control of the issues.

Note that the Council decision to launch a new study of discrimination and violence against individuals based on their sexual orientation and gender identity was opposed by all Islamic states. What is the incentive to respect those that Mohammad did not respect if they can merely give feminist money to elite American colleges like Columbia University? Let me say it again ...Public relations for third world dictators want feminism not G-d. They want to promote their tyranny to the ladies who they hurt.
(JPost) On Friday at 6 p.m. the Obama administration promise to fix the disreputable UN Human Rights Council by becoming a member died a predictable death at the UN General Assembly. Knowing they were headed for certain defeat, Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of International Organization Affairs, Esther Brimmer, spoke to a Washington institute on Wednesday touting the President’s “reform” accomplishments from inside the UN’s top human rights body. And her whitewash was supplemented at the end of the week by a barrage of statements and press releases from the State Department. None of it passes House Speaker John Boehner’s “straight-face test” for Obama’s foreign policy.
While the GA was nailing the coffin shut on council reform in New York, the council itself was wrapping up its latest session in Geneva with its usual systematic efforts to demonize the State of Israel. Though Brimmer’s speech included a disingenuous declaration that US membership in the council was especially beneficial for Israel, Friday’s events will solidify the growing perception of the president’s dangerous disinterest in Israel’s welfare.
The council was the “reformed” version of the UN Human Rights Commission, which once flaunted a Libyan chair. The Bush administration and its UN ambassador John Bolton opposed this 2006 “reform” on the grounds that the changes were superficial and there were no membership criteria for election to what was, after all, the UN’s top human rights body. The European Union, however, was bought off by including a five-year review plan. That review ended Friday with the adoption of a GA resolution that kicked any further reconsideration down the road “10-15 years.”
From the day it began, the council has proved to be even worse than its predecessor. Sitting in judgment on human rights violations worldwide are such luminaries as China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia. Member Libya had no difficulty being elected, and its suspension didn’t occur until March of this year, when the numbers of dead finally proved too embarrassing. But throwing women in jail for driving, outlawing freedom of religion, rendering homosexuality a capital offense and periodically cutting off heads haven’t made a dent in Saudi membership.
ON THE contrary, the most recent council election, which took place on May 20 at the GA, looked like this. Just before the vote, candidate Kuwait gave each state’s representative in the Assembly Hall a little box decorated with its flag and containing four delightful fresh dates. Austria gave delegates a package of cookies with a pretty bow marked “taste of Austria.”
Costa Rica distributed a colorful red wooden toy cart. India handed out “high elevation darjeeling tea,” and Romania gave out a very nice large calendar. Along with Burkina Faso, where most of the female population has undergone female genital mutilation – aka torture – they were all duly elected.
With their actual human rights credentials off the table, council members adopted a fixed agenda of only a few items to govern their proceedings. One item is devoted to Israel alone and one to all other 191 UN member states. The Human Rights Commission spent 40 years adopting country-specific criticisms, a third of which condemned Israel. Fifty percent of the “reformed” council’s country-specific resolutions and decisions are devoted to Israel-bashing. There have been 12 special sessions in the last five years, and half of them have been on Israel alone. There has been only one “urgent debate” on a country – Israel. There have been more human rights reports commissioned on Israel than on any other state. And only one country is not allowed even to attend the lobbying and information-sharing regional meetings associated with the council sessions – Israel – while “Palestine” is invited to all of them.
Rather than discredit a body that calls itself a human rights authority but reeks of discrimination, and is tasked with promoting tolerance but provides a global platform for hate-mongering, Obama decided to give it American credibility and taxpayer dollars. His No. 1 excuse was the promise to reform it from the inside.
Here’s Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and UN Ambassador Susan Rice on March 31, 2009, explaining the reason to join: “The Council... is scheduled to undergo a formal review of its structure and procedures in 2011, which will offer a significant opportunity for Council reform.”
US Ambassador to the Council Eileen Donahoe, in a September 13, 2010, New York Times editorial, called the review “a serious self-reflection exercise” and claimed that “if we do not sit at the table with others and do the work necessary to influence the process, US values and priorities will not be reflected in the outcome.”
Even as late as March 25 of this year, a poker-faced administration spokesperson said: “The United States... looks forward to working with UN member states as the HRC review process continues in New York. There is still room to... ensure greater scrutiny of the human rights records of candidates for election to this body.”
ON FRIDAY, those promises were shown to be utterly fraudulent. Every major recommendation that American negotiators made over a process spanning many months, including instituting membership criteria and changing the discriminatory anti-Israel agenda, was rejected. Only four states voted in the GA against the outcome of the non-reform reform: Israel, the United States, Canada and Palau.
Gloating over the total defeat of the Obama plan were Syria (speaking for the Arab group), Russia (speaking for a revealing “cross-regional group” comprising Algeria, Belarus, Bolivia, China, Cuba, Iran, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Syria, Venezuela, Vietnam and Yemen), Tajikistan (speaking for the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC)), Iran and Egypt. Syria called the president’s bluff this way: “Warmest thanks... Our efforts were crowned by arriving at the document before us today... The main objective of our work was... not reform because the Council was already a reform of the Commission.”
Islamic states have reason to be pleased. The council majority is held by a combination of two regional groups – African and Asian – and OIC members are the majority on both of these groups, thus giving them the balance of power.
The consequences of this political landscape were reinforced by Friday’s events at the council session in Geneva. The council wrapped up its latest session by adopting one more resolution on Israel – this time about the eight Turkish extremists killed a year ago trying to ram a legal blockade of terrorist-run Gaza. There was no resolution on Syria – further condemnation by the council was put off until next session, three months away. And nothing from the council on Yemen, on account of insufficient data. Of the eight votes in total held at this session, the US was on the losing side for six of them.
According to the Obama administration, however, the current US approach to the UN is supposedly good for Israel. In Brimmer’s words, the council has “improved as the result of direct US engagement. If we cede ground, if our engagement in the UN system is restricted – these bodies likely would be dominated by our adversaries. A scenario... not good for the United States and certainly not for Israel.”
The Obama line about knowing what is in Israel’s best interests is beginning to wear very thin. The council’s vote on the flotilla resolution was 36 for, eight abstentions and one against – the United States. US membership has made no difference to the outcomes on Israel. But it has given those outcomes a credibility that they don’t deserve.
After Friday’s GA vote, Obama diplomat John Sammis labeled the council’s “effectiveness and legitimacy” as “compromised,” called its agenda “unfair and unbalanced,” and said its membership policy “discredits, dishonors and diminishes” the body. Talk is cheap. The decent thing for the US to do after finally coming to such a conclusion would be to announce its departure or at least allow its term to expire next year.
But Obama has done nothing of the kind. Ensuring the American team had no bargaining power, the administration declared in March – three months before the end of negotiations and a whopping 18 months in advance of the next election – that the US would run for a second term.
Not coincidentally, on Friday the administration decided to circulate a list of the council’s accomplishments at the last session. In addition to itemizing mere statements from groups of countries on issues that the council itself refused to handle, they pointed to the Council decision to launch a new study of discrimination and violence against individuals based on their sexual orientation and gender identity.
For Obama, progress on other human rights issues takes priority over the unequal treatment of Israel and Jewish self-determination. It’s an old trick, playing minority groups off against one another. But at the end of the day there is no escaping the fact that in the name of human rights, the administration has trashed the fundamental norm of human rights protection – equality. And genuine human rights advocates ought to know only too well how exemption clauses on human dignity are bound to turn out. via eye-on-the-world.blogspot.com

Muslim nations voted against the measure: denouncing discrimination against homosexuals

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The United Nations’ Human Rights Council, a committee based in Geneva, Switzerland, has approved a declaration denouncing ‘discrimination’ against homosexuals and ordering a global study of the phenomenon.

The declaration also decries discrimination against people for their “gender identity,” which refers to the sex that a person claims to be, in contrast to his actual biological sex.

The Human Rights Council, whose decisions are not legally binding on UN member nations, passed the resolution in a narrow 23-19 vote, with three abstentions. In addition, Libya was not permitted to vote, because its membership has been suspended.

While Muslim nations voted against the measure, delegates from traditionally Catholic nations voted for it, despite the declaration’s potential conflict with Catholic social teaching.

don't make Jabarin jealous!

"Please allow me a rare personal Tweet: Got married!", says @KenRoth

Sarah Leah Whitson pushes the race button

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Sarah Leah Whitson, the Human Rights Watch official who raised funds for her organization by blasting Israel in uber-racist, slavery-tolerating Saudi Arabia, has made one of the most odious analogies possible. She writes,
Israeli President Shimon Peres visited Washington earlier this month, hot on the heels of an announcement that Israeli authorities had approved yet more housing units for Jewish settlers in the West Bank. In a week when the U.S. paused to recall the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, President Peres might have considered King’s message — an end to segregation — and why such a system of racial inequality remains in place in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.



Back in 1968, when Dr. King was murdered, the debate about discrimination was live and real. Most governments have long since stopped trying to justify separating people based on race or national origin, whether for ostensible security concerns, like the U.S. internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, or plain old bigotry, like the Jim Crow laws of the American south.


Yet in the areas of the Occupied Palestinian Territories where Israel has moved almost half a million Jewish “settlers,” not only do Israeli laws and policies strictly segregate Jews from Palestinians, they deliberately deprive Palestinians of the most basic needs, in many cases forcing them out of their communities.

Human Rights Watch and the selling of Gaddafi

If Whitson is suggesting that the ‘Palestinian cause’ is anything like the civil rights movement in America — clearly she is — she is living in an alternate universe.
Civil rights workers did not fire antitank missiles at school buses, nor did they slit the throats of babies and children. American blacks did not blow themselves up at holiday celebrations, and Mexican and Canadian ones did not launch rockets into American towns and cities.
In fact, try as I might, the only way that Dr. M. L. King and Ismail Haniyya are alike is that they both say they are struggling for their people’s rights. Of course, Dr. King actually was, whereas Haniyya is a racist, genocidal antisemite who wants to wipe out the Jews in Israel and take their country. King indeed represented an oppressed racial minority that was discriminated against in law and custom, while Haniyya is supported by the considerable resources of the Arab world and Iran in his murderous cause. If the analogy makes sense at all, Jewish Israelis are the ones discriminated against in the Middle East and in the broader international community.
But Whitson isn’t interested in reality — as she wasn’t interested in the very real human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia — she is interested in pushing buttons.
So she claims that Israel maintains a system of ‘racial inequality’, when the concept of race has nothing to do with relations between Jews and Arabs, who are genetically closer to each other than to non-Jewish Europeans. Of course she doesn’t have to use the word ‘race’, she could claim that there was a system of cultural or linguistic discrimination. But that wouldn’t push the button.
Whitson refers numerous times to the ‘Occupied Palestinian Territories’. What are these territories? They are part of the lands that were set aside by the League of Nations for a “Jewish National Home” after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in WWI. Various Arab states were also created at the same time, but this was the only area specifically designated for Jewish settlement. These territories were never ‘Palestinian’, and they were only ‘Arab’ insofar as they were illegally occupied by Jordan and Egypt for 19 years. They are not ‘occupied’, since there was no sovereign authority there since the end of the Mandate — they are at most ‘disputed’, and an argument can be made that if any party ought to control them, it’s Israel, the representative of the Jewish people.

She continues,
With little regard for the blatant racial inequality of its policies, the Israeli government provides Jewish settlements with water, electricity, housing, schools, hospitals and roads, while it severely restricts access to these necessities to Palestinian communities under its control.

HRW appoints PFLP terrorist
named Jabarin as an advisor



Race doesn’t have anything to do with it. The territories are not part of Israel. Israel doesn’t have to ‘provide’ anything — there is a Palestinian Authority (PA) which gets enormous sums of money from the West and which governs the areas of Judea and Samaria (Areas A and B) which contain more than 90% of the Arab population. Arabs connected with the corrupt PA have well-paying positions or lucrative business concessions. They live in large villas, much more elaborate than the housing found in Israeli settlements.
Whitson, by the way, refers to the “the 60 percent of the West Bank known as ‘Area C’ where Israel has complete control without mentioning that Area C contains only 4% of the Arab population! The rest is mostly uninhabited desert and mountainous areas, along with the Israeli settlements of course.
In 1967, only 20% of the Arab population in Judea and Samaria was connected to a water system — now 90% are connected to Israel’s national water grid. Even Gaza, ruled by the bellicose Hamas, receives most of its water and electricity from Israel. This leads to ironic situations, such as the time Hamas snipers shot and wounded an Israel Electric Company worker who was climbing a tower near the border. And it is upsetting to know that the factories that make the Qassam rockets fired at Israel are powered by Israeli electricity.
A particularly pernicious accusation is that Israel has built ‘apartheid roads’ on which Arabs are not permitted to drive. What is actually the case is that Jewish residents were subjected to frequent deadly drive-by shooting attacks on certain roads — in August of last year four people were killed in a single incident — and so the Israeli authorities chose to close the off-ramps to the Arab villages in the area. Arabs, both Israeli Arabs and residents of the territories do drive on the roads — again, there is nothing racist involved, unless it is the racist murderers who shoot at vehicles containing Jews.
Israeli hospitals routinely treat patients from the territories and Eastern Jerusalem. During the Gaza war, the Palestinian Authority stopped paying for its patients on the grounds that the Jews were ‘making propaganda’ by treating them. There is no separation between Jewish and Arab patients, and in fact even wounded terrorists are treated.
Whitson goes on:
Israel’s security justifications fall far short of the strict and narrow limits on differential treatment permitted under international law between people of different ethnicities or national origins. A state should never apply such measures categorically against an entire group and must limit them to specific individuals who pose a threat.

One of the security measures that Whitson and others find to be unacceptable profiling are the checkpoints, which do present an inconvenience for the entire Palestinian Arab population. But almost every day, potential terrorists are stopped at the checkpoints with weapons or explosives. How would it be possible to do this without everyone passing through the checkpoint? Should security personnel only check “specific individuals who pose a threat?” How would they know who the are?

The fact is that Israel is at war, and many of those fighting against it are embedded in the Palestinian Arab population. You cannot understand the relationship of Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs outside the context of this war, and you cannot understand the Israeli-Palestinian part of it outside the context of the broader war — whose goal is the elimination of Israel — that has been prosecuted by the Arab world (and now Iran) since the beginning of the state.
.
Pretending that this is a question of civil rights, that there is ‘racial discrimination’, completely falsifies and distorts this reality.
But it’s great for pushing buttons.
via calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com from Fresnozionism.org 17 April '11

EXPOSED:
Sarah Leah Whitson, the head of 'Human Rights Watch

NGO Monitor has called on Sarah Leah Whitson, the head of 'Human Rights Watch's Mideast and North Africa division, to resign, on the grounds that she misled the public regarding the nature of the Gadhafi regime in Libya and the intentions of Gadhafi's son, Seif al-Islam.

Robert Bernstein's new baby

Robert Bernstein attacked Human Rights Watch - an organization that he founded - for going off course in the Middle East.  A lot of people thought that was the end of Bernstein and that he'd never be heard from again. But at 88, Bernstein has the energy of a much younger man. He's starting a new human rights organization that will do it his way.


Soros giving Human Rights Watch $100 million - the Jewish Gold fillings during the Holocaust wasn't enough

Uber-Leftist philanthropist George Soros is donating $100 million to 'Human Rights Watch' so that they can stop embarrassing themselves trying to raise money in Saudi Arabia and get on with the business of undermining the existence of the Jewish State.

How's that Egyptian democracy going?

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From the NYT:
An Egyptian blogger was sentenced Monday to three years in prison for criticizing the military in what human rights advocates called one of the more alarming violations of freedom of expression since a popular uprising led to the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak two months ago.
The blogger, Maikel Nabil, 26, had assailed the Egyptian armed forces for what he called its continuation of the corruption and anti-democratic practices of Mr. Mubarak. Mr. Nabil often quoted from reports by established human rights groups.
The charges against Mr. Nabil included insulting the military establishment and spreading false information about the armed forces. The tribunal charged him with spreading information previously published by human rights organizations like Amnesty International on the army’s use of violence against protesters, the torture of those detained inside the Egyptian Museum and the use of forced pelvic exams, known as “virginity tests,” against detained female protesters.
The main evidence against Mr. Nabil, who blogged under the name “Son of Ra,” was a CD containing 73 screen shots of entries on his blog and his personal Facebook page, according to Heba Morayef, a researcher in Egypt for Human Rights Watch, which is based in New York.
Mr. Nabil has the unusual political position in Egypt of being a pacifist as well as a champion of Israel, often praising its democracy, educational standards and innovations.
Mona Seif, a rights advocate, said Mr. Nabil may have been singled out as an easy target partly because of previous run-ins with the military and partly because of his pro-Israel views.
Apparently, the Egyptian military figures that most Egyptians won't get too worked up about a Zionist being arrested.
Here is Nabil's blog post, in Arabic, describing why he is pro-Israel.
(h/t Silke)

Robert Bernstein's new baby

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Some of you may recall that a few months ago Robert Bernstein attacked Human Rights Watch - an organization that he founded - for going off course in the Middle East.
A lot of people thought that was the end of Bernstein and that he'd never be heard from again. But at 88, Bernstein has the energy of a much younger man. He's starting a new human rights organization that will do it his way.
In late February, Bernstein launched Advancing Human Rights, a new organization meant to act as a corrective, one that hopes to return human rights to what Bernstein thinks are its forgotten fundamental principles. Among its board members are Yelena Bonner, the Soviet dissident and wife of Andrei Sakharov, and Irwin Cotler, the former Canadian minister of justice.
Natan Sharansky, the onetime jailed refusenik and human rights activist who is now chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, is an old friend of Bernstein’s. When Bernstein was head of Random House, he published Sharansky’s memoir, “Fear No Evil.” And the two share the assessment that human rights organizations have gone astray.
“It’s not every day when someone at the age of 88 realizes that the child he brought up has betrayed him, and decides to raise a new child,” Sharansky said.
The stated mandate of the new group is broader than Bernstein’s initial complaint, though it stems from it. AHR will be focused on the struggles of dissidents in closed, autocratic societies, like those in the Middle East and China. Bernstein wants the group to more closely promote those rights enshrined in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — specifically women’s rights and free speech — as opposed to the Geneva Convention and the other laws of warfare, which he thinks should be outside the purview of a human rights organization.
But underneath this new mandate, the clear motivating factor for Bernstein’s new initiative is his concern for Israel. It rises to the surface as soon as he is asked about the point of starting yet another human rights organization: Israel, as a democratic, open society, should not be under constant investigation by human rights groups, he said. The country and the way it wages war need to be better explained and defended.
Read the whole thing. Note that in this post, I don't have to talk about human rights in scare quotes.

Déjà vu: Syria, the U.N. "Human Rights" Council, and the Obama Administration

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As if Obama Administration's attempt wasn't as big a failure as it was a sham, Obama has announced his decision to seek a reelection, just as Syria made its move to seek a seat on the Council


The Obama administration’s effort to draw an artificial distinction between the butchers in Damascus and the gangsters in Libya, Egypt and Tunisia, has taken a bizarre twist: Syria is seeking a seat on the U.N.’s top human rights body, the Human Rights Council. And, as part of the process leading up to the May 20, 2011 elections, the U.N. published a Syria’s “pledge” to protect human rights on Thursday.
For context, this is the same pledge system that Muammar Qaddafi’s regime used to get a seat on the Council last May. Rather than refusing to legitimize a scheme that makes a mockery of the institution, the Obama administration announced hours before that it has decided to seek a second term on the U.N. Human Rights Council.
The announcement comes a whopping 14 months before the U.S. term on the Council expires, making the declaration totally unnecessary to guarantee American reelection. Instead, it seems, President Obama aims to preempt mounting criticism of his decision to participate, as well as to minimize the serious menace posed by Syria’s ambitions. The move comes at precisely the wrong moment in time. (TWS)
More... via eye-on-the-world.blogspot.comimage of Syria's first couple, Asma and Bashar al-Assad, at their private office overlooking Damascus.from "Hating Israel isn't enough"



Mideast Unrest Reawakens Concern Over Taint of Foreign Money

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Mideast Unrest Reawakens Concern Over Taint of Foreign Money 1
In the summer of 2008, Lewis N. Walker, president of Lawrence Technological University, flew to Bahrain to deliver an honorary doctorate to Sheik Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa. The country's prime minister and crown prince was being honored for his support of a free-market economy and for "creating the infrastructure for an innovative and socially and environmentally sustainable society," according to a Lawrence Tech press release. The crown prince honored the university at about the same time with a $3-million donation.
These days, Bahrain may not look so socially sustainable. Soon after the demonstrations in Egypt, thousands of people marched to Pearl Square in Bahrain's capital city to protest the country's absolute monarchy, and were met with a brutal government response that so far has left several dead and hundreds wounded.
Lawrence Tech sought to cultivate a relationship with an oil-rich Mideast state—one, Lawrence Tech officials point out, that seemed relatively progressive at the time. But recent protests and resulting crackdowns in the region have had a way of refocusing the Western public's attention on the regimes there—even on governments thought to be permissive—and on the colleges that have ties in the region.
Those ties—particularly with Libya—have been especially damaging to the London School of Economics and Political Science, where early this month the director resigned amid controversy over funds the school had received from Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.
The fallout there, and at other Western institutions, shows the risks colleges take to their reputations when they accept money from autocratic regimes, no matter how amicable the regimes' relations with the West are at the time.
Critics from conservative and pro-Israel camps have long argued that Muslim countries are buying influence in academe. Now objections to foreign money are also coming from the left, emphasizing the human-rights issues and the unseemly relationships colleges might have with despotic governments or money that flows through them.
read the whole thing By Scott Carlson via chronicle.com
Fabrice Coffrini, AFP, Getty Images
Bahrain's prime minister, Sheik Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa

Human Rights Watch and the selling of Gaddafi

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Gerald Steinberg and Anne Herzberg March 10, 2011 Jerusalem Post

To read the original article, click here.

In 2009, Sarah Leah Whitson, director of the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch (HRW), visited Libya, where she claimed to have discovered a “Tripoli spring,” led by Muammar Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam. In two articles, she praised him for creating an “expanded space for discussion and debate.”
As a top official of a prominent human rights watchdog, Whitson’s endorsement gave credibility to this fictitious reform movement. Two years later, and weeks after the rebellion began and the Gaddafi regime had killed hundreds, if not thousands, Whitson belatedly reversed course, and in a February 24 Los Angeles Times op-ed acknowledged the façade of Saif’s human rights “reforms.”
In contrast to her earlier praise, Whitson wrote that “most Libyans we spoke with never had much faith that Muammar Gaddafi would learn new tricks, or that the announced reforms were anything more than an endless loop of promises made and broken.”
Clearly, this reversal came far too late to help the Libyans, and reflects the wider moral failure of HRW in the Middle East. In her wildly misnamed “Tripoli Spring,” (Foreign Policy, May 27, 2009), Whitson extolled Saif – who has since vowed to “fight until the last man, the last woman, the last bullet” against the Libyan protesters – as “the real impetus for transformation” via his Gaddafi Foundation and two semi-private papers.
Her embrace continued after a second visit in December 2009, when she referred to Gaddafi’s heir-apparent as one of the “forces of reform,” comparing his foundation to HRW (“Postcard from... Tripoli,” Foreign Policy in Focus, February, 11, 2010). Although HRW officials were placed under constant surveillance, and its press conference was cut short by government agents and ended in “pandemonium,” Whitson still spun her trip in a positive light.
In January 2010, when the regime imposed censorship on the Internet and blocked access to YouTube, Whitson was silent. At the same time, the government established a body to monitor journalists, and closed the two semi-private papers lauded by Whitson in “Tripoli Spring.”
But no correction was issued by HRW.
Whitson’s blindness was further reflected in the case of Fathi Eljahmi, Libya’s most prominent dissident, imprisoned, tortured and killed in 2009. His brother condemned both Amnesty International and HRW for hesitating “to advocate publicly for Fathi’s case” for fear they would “antagonize Gaddafi.”
He reserved special condemnation for Whitson’s reference to Saif ’s charity as a “spring,” observing that the foundation “is actively menacing my brother’s family. Some family members continue to endure interrogation, denial of citizenship papers and passports, round-the- clock surveillance and threats of rape and physical liquidation.”
But Whitson and HRW chose to remain silent.
In contrast to Whitson’s promotion of the “reformer” façade, others were not taken in. Journalist Michael Totten, who also visited Libya, compared the country to North Korea and Turkmenistan, pointedly noting that Saif “is ideologically committed to preserving his father’s prison state system... Gullible diplomats and journalists may sincerely believe he’s a reformer, but a close look at his own statements proves that he’s lying when he passes himself off as moderate.”
Whitson’s endorsement of Gaddafi’s son is not the only example of her cozying up to repressive regimes. In May 2009, Whitson led a fund-raising trip to Saudi Arabia where she marketed HRW’s work combating pro- Israel “pressure groups” to solicit funds from “prominent members of Saudi society” including the ruling Shura Council (the religious police).
In May 2010, Whitson had a meeting with Hamas Minister of Justice Faraj Alghoul. As in the Libyan and Saudi cases, Whitson took the soft approach to massive human-rights violations. Instead, she assured Alghoul that she was visiting Gaza “to listen to all parties directly so she will prepare more objective and impartial reports,” and promised that HRW’s next report would allege Israeli violations of international law.
Beirut was next on Whitson’s itinerary, and during a November 2010 trip she praised “the Lebanese sophistication for human rights.”
In contrast, HRW Lebanon director Nadim Houry condemned the lack of effectual and accountable state institutions, and the absence of political will to implement change. Two months after Whitson’s proclamation of support, Hezbollah took control of the government to block cooperation with the UN tribunal investigating the murder of prime minister Rafik Hariri in 2006.
In each of these cases – Libya, Saudi Arabia, Gaza and Lebanon – Whitson has displayed behavior completely lacking in moral leadership required for any organization claiming to support human rights. In addition, copying the strategy of the Arab dictatorships, year after year HRW has maintained an obsessive focus on allegations directed at Israel. Its website includes only 10 pages on Libya, but more than 40 on Israel.
As HRW founder Robert Bernstein stressed, the “plight of 350 million people” ruled by the most “brutal, closed and autocratic” regimes, “who would most benefit from the kind of attention a large and well-financed international human-rights organization can provide is being ignored as Human Rights Watch’s Middle East division prepares report after report on Israel.”
As long as ideologues like Whitson are responsible for HRW’s agenda in the Middle East, the spin will continue, at the expense of universal human rights.
Gerald Steinberg is on the faculty of Bar-Ilan University and president of NGO Monitor, the Jerusalem-based research organization. Anne Herzberg is NGO Monitor’s legal adviser.

UN Watch's Hillel Neuer slams Libya on al-Jazeera

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Muammar al-Gadaffi

Here's an interview with UN Watch's Hillel Neuer on al-Jazeera English slamming Libya and the United Nations' treatment of Libya.  via israelmatzav.blogspot.com image via rnw.nl

EXPOSED: Sarah Leah Whitson, the head of 'Human Rights Watch

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NGO Monitor has called on Sarah Leah Whitson, the head of 'Human Rights Watch's Mideast and North Africa division, to resign, on the grounds that she misled the public regarding the nature of the Gadhafi regime in Libya and the intentions of Gadhafi's son, Seif al-Islam.
Following Human Rights Watch's (HRW) neglect of brutal human rights violations in Libya and false claims and cover-ups about prospects for reforms there, NGO Monitor today called for the immediate resignation of Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW's director of its Middle East and North Africa (MENA) division. HRW's MENA division failed to devote the necessary resources to speaking out against human rights violations by oppressive Middle East regimes, including Saudi Arabia, Hamas, Lebanon, and most notably, Libya. Recent statements by Whitson regarding Seif Islam, a son of Moammar Qaddafi, demonstrate that she consistently whitewashed the reality in Libya and further embarrassed her organization.
"Human Rights Watch, and specifically MENA director Sarah Leah Whitson, has soft-peddled Qaddafi's oppressive acts and offered no help to the Libyan people," says Anne Herzberg, legal advisor for NGO Monitor, a research institution that tracks NGOs. "Whitson was well aware of the atrocities committed by the Qaddafi regime, but she chose to present the façade that Qaddafi's son was prepared to implement 'reforms.' The events in Libya over the past weeks reveal Whitson's gross incompetence. She has failed to retract her previously misleading statements. She cannot continue to head the MENA division, and we call for her immediate resignation."
NGO Monitor notes that Whitson held a press conference last year in Libya that was abruptly halted and ended in "pandemonium." Yet, Whitson spun her trip and the event in a positive light in her 2010 "Postcard from Tripoli," in which she said that Libya had a "moment of opportunity." Even more egregious is Whitson's enthusiastic marketing of the Qaddafi regime from 2009's Tripoli Spring (published in Foreign Policy):
For the first time in memory, change is in the air in Libya. The brittle atmosphere of repression has started to fracture, giving way to expanded space for discussion and debate, proposals for legislative reform, and even financial compensation for families of the hundreds of men killed in a prison riot a decade ago.
Many Libyans say the changes were unavoidable in the face of the open satellite and Internet access of the past decade.
These assessments differ sharply from the Libya Whitson now admits she saw, as part of her attempts to rewrite the record. In contrast to the earlier fiction, she recently wrote "most Libyans we spoke with never had much faith that Moammar Qaddafi would learn new tricks, or that the announced reforms were anything more than an endless loop of promises made and broken."
"What Sarah Leah Whitson admits she knew about the Qaddafi family's fraudulent reform agenda completely contradicts statements during her Tripoli trip," says Prof. Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor. "Reform was never on the horizon and Seif Islam was simply seeking to validate the eventual transfer of power to his hands, using allies like Whitson. Her attempts to give a facelift to MENA's treatment of Libya is indicative of the division's approach to many of the repressive regimes in the region, including Saudi Arabia, Syria, Hamas, and others."
Maybe Whitson was just trying to raise money from the Libyans. She's really good at that.
Read the whole thing.
Another Feminist BITES THE DUST!
Posted via email from noahdavidsimon's posterous
photo
Out of Context... but that is the point.  EXPOSED in a good way.  NOT in a stinky globalist way image via Daniel Ortega Muñoz
 

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