Selection Bias
Nick Cohen, writing in the Spectator in February 2013, says that both "Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch look with horror on those who speak out about murder, mutilation and oppression if the murderers, mutilators and oppressors do not fit into their script."
In 2007, AI stated that it reports disproportionately on relatively more democratic and open countries. AI's intention is not to produce a range of reports such that the number of reports on a country correlates precisely with the number and severity of its human rights abuses. Instead, its aim is: (a) to document what it can, to (b) produce pressure for improvement. These two factors skew the number of reports towards more open and democratic countries, because information is more easily obtainable, these countries have usually made strong claims and commitments to uphold human rights, and their governments are more susceptible to public pressure. AI also focuses more heavily on states than to other groups. This is due in part to the responsibility states have to the citizens they claim to represent.
Read more about this topic: Criticism Of Amnesty International
Famous quotes containing the words selection and/or bias:
“Historians will have to face the fact that natural selection determined the evolution of cultures in the same manner as it did that of species.”
—Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989)
“The solar system has no anxiety about its reputation, and the credit of truth and honesty is as safe; nor have I any fear that a skeptical bias can be given by leaning hard on the sides of fate, of practical power, or of trade, which the doctrine of Faith cannot down-weigh.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)