As Assad Slaughters Syrians, Where Is Human Rights Watch?

I wrote yesterday about how the Arab League has watched while Assad has been shooting unarmed protesters in Syria.

One could argue that the Arab League is not exactly known for advocating human rights.
But what is Human Rights Watch's excuse?

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. As HRW’s Fred Abraham stated, “The west of Libya is a black hole....we have no idea what’s going on.”

In Syria, HRW’s inadequacy is not new. Last July, HRW published a report titled “A Wasted Decade,” covering ten years of research on human rights violations in Syria in just 35 pages. The thinness of the report was matched by the weak recommendations.

The report recommended a limited response, directed exclusively to President Assad, who was urged to enact, amend, introduce, and remove a variety of laws, and to set up commissions. To alleviate restrictions on freedom of expression, HRW urged him 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.”

In other words, HRW was content as a spectator throughout much of Assad’s brutal reign. Now, as Syrian citizens are murdered by his forces, HRW has no infrastructure or networks in place to aid citizens leading the “human rights” revolution.

But, if HRW did not invest in developing its capabilities in the closed and repressive society of Syria, what were HRW’s priorities?

Read the whole thing.

Of course, we all now that in contrast to the limited attention that it pays to Syria, HRW has had no problem paying lots of attention to Israel. As it has consistently done in the past, last year, Human Rights Watch released 51 document 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.

Whatever else you may say about the inordinate amount of time and effort Human Rights Watch has been concentrating on Israel, this mania HRW has for Israel may explain in part the inability of Human Rights Watch to deal properly with the crisis in Syria.

Human Rights Watch is irrelevant on the slaughter being carried out in Syria.
If it keeps this up, HRW will be irrelevant altogether.

Technorati Tag: Syria and HRW and Human Rights Watch.