March 10, 2020

USA: Executive Director of Human Rights Watch (HRW), Ken Roth, Accepted A Sizable Donation From Saudi Funds TO NOT Criticize REPRESSION, Mistreatment, Death Penalty Of Gays #LGBT.

What do you expect, Ken Roth is pro-Palestinian, pro-Iran, defends Islam. He hates the sovereign Jewish nation of Israel and hates America, Capitalism, and Christianity. LGBT are protected in Jewish nation of Israel and Capitalist Christian majority America. (emphasis mine)

The Jerusalem Post
written by Benjamin Weinthal
Thursday March 5, 2020

‘Human Rights Watch accepted a sizable donation from a Saudi billionaire shortly after its researchers documented labor abuses at one of the man’s companies’.

The Executive Director of Human Rights Watch (HRW), Ken Roth, accepted a major donation from a Saudi real estate tycoon by promising not to support advocacy of the LGBT community in the Middle East and North Africa.

The Intercept first reported Monday on the quid pro quo between Roth, who has gained a reputation for strident attacks against Israel, and Saudi billionaire Mohamed Bin Issa al-Jaber.

“Human Rights Watch [HRW] accepted a sizable donation from a Saudi billionaire shortly after its researchers documented labor abuses at one of the man’s companies, a potential violation of the rights group’s own fund-raising guidance,” wrote The Intercept’s Alex Emmons.

“In 2012, Roth signed a memorandum of understanding with al-Jaber containing language that said the gift could not be used for LGBT rights work in the region. He was later pictured next to Jaber at a 2013 ceremony to memorialize the funding,” the self-described online “adversarial journalism” the online site wrote.

“The controversial donation is at the center of a contentious internal debate about the judgment and leadership of Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth,” wrote The Intercept.

“The 2012 grant from al-Jaber’s UK-based charitable foundation amounted to $470,000,” the news site said.

The Jerusalem Post can report that last year Roth praised Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in a tweet, after he defended his regime’s execution of gays.

Roth wrote in July 2019: “In my recent dealings with him [Zarif], he: 1. Helped secure UN investigation of Myanmar for atrocities against Rohingya. 2. Vowed Iran wouldn’t join Syrian attacks on Idlib civilians.”

Iran’s regime has nevertheless participated in attacks on innocent Syrians in Idlib.

When asked why the Islamic Republic of Iran executes gays, Zarif said in June 2019: “Our society has moral principles, and according to these principles we live,” adding that “these are moral principles regarding the behavior of people in general. And that’s because the law is upheld and you abide by laws.”

The Post first reported that Iran’s regime publicly hanged a man based on an anti-gay charge in January 2019. HRW and Ken Roth did not criticize Iran’s execution of the man at the time.

According to a 2008 British WikiLeaks cable, the clerical regime in Tehran has executed between 4,000 and 6,000 gays and lesbians since 1979.

It is unclear whether the Saudi deal with Roth stopped him and HRW from criticizing Iran’s lethal homophobia.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia imposes the death penalty on its gay citizens.

On February 27, HRW published a note that it returned the donation to the Saudi real estate magnet, after The Intercept launched its inquiry into HRW misconduct.

“In 2012, Human Rights Watch made a deeply regrettable decision to accept a donation that included conditions that the funds not be used to support HRW’s work on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights in the Middle East and North Africa,” the watchdog wrote.

Roth has faced severe criticism in a New York Times opinion piece from the late Robert L. Bernstein, founder of HRW and its chairman from 1978 to 1998, for his failure to promote human rights in closed Middle Eastern nations.

“I must publicly join the group’s critics. Human Rights Watch had as its original mission to pry open closed societies, advocate basic freedoms and support dissenters. But recently it has been issuing reports on the Israeli-Arab conflict that are helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state,” wrote Bernstein in 2009.

Roth was a zealous advocate of pushing the UN’s Human Rights Council to post a blacklist of companies operating in the disputed Palestinian territories. The list is perceived by critics as a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions measure targeting Israel.

HRW was embroiled in a Saudi fund-raising scandal in 2009. A Wall Street Journal op-ed alleged that the group sent officials to the kingdom to secure funds by showing off its fights with “pro-Israel pressure groups.”

Writing in WSJ, David Bernstein said: “A delegation from Human Rights Watch was recently in Saudi Arabia. To investigate the mistreatment of women under Saudi law? To campaign for the rights of homosexuals, subject to the death penalty in Saudi Arabia? To protest the lack of religious freedom in the Saudi kingdom? To issue a report on Saudi political prisoners?

“No, no, no, and no. The delegation arrived to raise money from wealthy Saudis by highlighting HRW’s demonization of Israel.”
The Intercept
written by Alex Emmons
Monday March 2, 2020

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH accepted a sizable donation from a Saudi billionaire shortly after its researchers documented labor abuses at one of the man’s companies, a potential violation of the rights group’s own fundraising guidance.

Human Rights Watch recently returned the gift from Saudi real estate magnate Mohamed Bin Issa Al Jaber, which came with the caveat that it could not be used to support the group’s LGBT advocacy in the Middle East and North Africa. The controversial donation is at the center of a contentious internal debate about the judgment and leadership of Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth.

After The Intercept began investigating the donation, the rights group published a statement on its website saying that accepting the funding was a “deeply regrettable decision” that “stood in stark contrast to our core values and our longstanding commitment to LGBT rights as an integral part of human rights.”

The 2012 grant from Al Jaber’s U.K.-based charitable foundation amounted to $470,000, Roth told The Intercept, adding that a “final pledge installment was never realized.” The statement did not refer to Al Jaber by name, but two Human Rights Watch employees confirmed his identity to The Intercept.

“We also regret that the grant was made by the owner of a company that Human Rights Watch had previously identified as complicit in labor rights abuse,” the group’s statement said. In 2012 and previous years, Human Rights Watch reported extensively on labor violations at Jadawel International, a Saudi construction company founded and owned by Al Jaber.

Managers at Jadawel took passports from unskilled migrant workers and failed to renew their Saudi residency permits, effectively trapping laborers and forcing them to keep working in silence for fear of arrest, according to a 2010 Human Rights Watch report. That arrangement allowed managers to underpay staff; workers told Human Rights Watch that some had gone months without pay.

Roth was himself involved in soliciting the donation, according to an internal Human Rights Watch email sent last month and obtained by The Intercept. The email was written on behalf of the group’s international board of directors and signed by the board’s co-chairs, Amy Rao and Neil Rimer.

In 2012, Roth signed a memorandum of understanding with Al Jaber containing language that said the gift could not be used for LGBT rights work in the region. He was later pictured next to Al Jaber at a 2013 ceremony to memorialize the funding.

“By accepting a pledge excluding its use for work on a group whose rights we strive to protect, the people involved at Human Rights Watch, Inc. made a serious error in judgment,” Rao and Rimer wrote to staff. “Ken Roth, the most senior person at HRW involved with soliciting this pledge, accepts full responsibility for this mistake.”

In an email to The Intercept, Roth said that he and others discussed the labor abuses at Jadawel “with the employer, who pledged to address them and later provided documentation to that effect. HRW and the employer then discussed a possible gift to HRW’s work, pending confirmation that the abuses had been resolved.” Roth also said the fallout from returning the donation has not impacted his management role at Human Rights Watch.

Human Rights Watch staff originally met with Al Jaber in 2010 as part of its advocacy process after researching his workers’ complaints, according to a Human Rights Watch employee. Their reporting continued the following year. Jadawel’s labor practices are mentioned in Human Rights Watch’s 2011 and 2012 World Reports as examples of the failures of Saudi Arabia’s sponsorship system to adequately protect migrant workers.

The 2012 report said some managers at Jadawel were “six months in arrears with salary payments,” and that “managers threatened workers not to pursue complaints in labor court.”

A fundraising policy approved by Human Rights Watch’s board later in 2012 said that the organization will not accept funding from a company that is “itself a focus of Human Rights Watch work,” or when “the solicitation or acceptance of such funds might undermine Human Rights Watch’s credibility, independence, or reputation.”

The donation was only recently made known to Human Rights Watch’s board, according to the internal email. But Al Jaber’s foundation announced the grant on its website in September 2013. “[His Excellency] Sheikh Mohamed Bin Issa Al Jaber, Founder and Chairman of the MBI Al Jaber Foundation, signed an agreement with Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, in order to support their work in the area of civil society in the Arab world, with particular reference to the cause of human rights in Arab countries in transition,” the announcement proclaimed.

Despite the restrictions on Al Jaber’s donation, Human Rights Watch continued to document LGBT rights violations in the region. In 2013, they joined a letter to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on LGBT rights and documented abuses against of transgender people in Kuwait. The following year, they published reports on LGBT rights in Morocco, Egypt, and Syria.

“Nevertheless, accepting a grant with such a condition was clearly wrong and is deeply disappointing to us,” Rao and Rimer wrote to staff last month.

Human Rights Watch will launch “a comprehensive independent investigation to understand why our stringent protocols and policies on vetting grants and donors failed,” according to its online statement.

“The investigation will start soon and will provide the basis for any further Board and management action,” the statement said. “To prevent this from happening again, we have created an additional policy explicitly prohibiting restrictions on gifts that would exclude particular social groups or fundamental rights issues.”

Update: March 2, 2020, 9:02 a.m. ET
This article has been updated to include a response and additional details from Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth that were received after publication.
Ken Roth accuses the SOVEREIGN Jewish nation of Israel of a "52 year occupation". No Ken. The Islamic REFUGEES that have lasted for generations against the UN refugee rules are OCCUPYING the sovereign Jewish nation of Israel. Most are not even from the area because of the "right to return" Islam doctrine to force Islamic terrorism into Israel to help annihilate the Jewish people and Jewish nation. (emphasis mine)

Posted by Princess Mononoke at 3:04 PM

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