Human Rights Watch -"caught with its pants down"

It has been evident for a long time now the something is not right with the "human rights" groups.Noble in theory but they are like a senile and diseased wreck hiding his sores under a cloak. One of the sores recently came out in open-

For years it has been clear to those who bear the brunt of criticism from human rights watchdogs like Amnesty and the UN Human Rights Council, that something is wrong with the international system aimed at exposing gross violations and war crimes. The overwhelmingly disproportionate criticism heaped on Israel and other democratic states, and the near blindness to the brutal oppression that takes place in dozens of other countries, especially Arab states, makes the entire pretense of international human rights law look like a sham.

But last week, one of these bodies was caught with its pants down. Two months ago, the Saudi-based newspaper Arab News described a fund-raising event for Human Rights Watch held in the Saudi kingdom, where high-level Saudi dignitaries were treated to a powerful presentation where the organization not only petitioned the brutal elites for funding, but paraded the fact that they were doing battle against pro-Israel pressure groups in the West — a clear repudiation of their purportedly objective status.
------------------------

All this is very damning for an organization that for years has tried rebuffing accusations of being blatantly anti-Israel. As one commentator writing at the (British) Spectator put it, “Whatever Israel’s faults, there is something deeply wrong about a human rights organisation trying to raise money in a religiously oppressive monarchical state out of criticising a liberal democracy. It does make one wonder how people committed to human rights can get it so wrong.”

It also makes one wonder how the world can continue to take such organizations so seriously.

Well, they are leftists first, human rights campaigners later.
Read the whole thing.

How can any American
consider himself to be free when it takes 1,428 and 850 pages
respectively to describe the government's new controls over him?

Welcome to the sweatshops of environmentalism-

Every time you switch on an energy-efficient, warming friendly light, a Chinese worker gets sick

Whoever thinks that the environmentalists have the good of humanity in their hearts needs to have his head examined.

An interesting post at the Retributions blog referencing an article by Salil Tripathi -

It might be reasonable and indeed necessary to emphasise human rights. It could also persuasively be argued that India needs more human rights activism. Yet the pursuit of a single goal disregarding all else, including concern for due process and fairness, is fraught with danger. For it relies too much on inherent moral standing of those who have attached themselves to the cause of human rights virtually assuming that they are guided by no other consideration save for a deep belief in their cause. It is particularly worrisome because their message is ostensibly guided by a sense of moral uprightness—a claim human rights activists are quick to make and underlies their basic advantage vis-à-vis the state. And because the message is so inextricably linked with the credibility of the messenger, even the slightest blemish damages the worthy cause of human rights. Ms Setalvad’s alleged improper behaviour falls squarely in this bracket as it strengthens of the hands of her detractors, who, suspicious of Ms Setalvad and her ilk, become dismissive of human rights itself

In a different but similar(no, it's not a paradox) context Melanie Philips says-

It is time now for all decent people of goodwill everywhere to boycott NGOs like Amnesty, War on Want and all the others who are pushing these obscene lies and libels about Israel. No decent person should have anything to do with these organisations. No-one should give money to these inciters of hatred and purveyors of lies. They have sided with the forces of genocide and Islamic fascism against the Jewish people, truth and conscience. They have become a force for evil in the world.

(emphasis mine)