Ideological Bias
HRW founder Robert Bernstein now accuses HRW of allowing repressive regimes to play a "moral equivalence game" by failing to distinguish the evidence available from open and closed societies, and of failing to recognize the "difference between wrongs committed in self-defense and those perpetrated intentionally."
The Times accuses HRW of filling its staff with former radical political activists including Joe Stork and Sarah Leah Whitson, writing, "theoretically an organization like HRW would not select as its researchers people who are so evidently on one side."
HRW has been accused of being unwilling or unable to perceive threats posed by radical Islam because their leftist ideology leads them to see criticism of Hezbollah, Hamas, Al Qaeda and similar groups as "a dangerous distraction from the real struggle." An example was the 2006 verbal attack on Peter Tatchell, who was accused of racism, Islamophobia and colonialism by HRW staff for criticizing Iranian execution of homosexuals.
Read more about this topic: Criticism Of Human Rights Watch
Famous quotes containing the words ideological and/or bias:
“Everything ideological possesses meaning: it represents, depicts, or stands for something lying outside itself. In other words, it is a sign. Without signs there is no ideology.”
—V.N. (Valintin Nikolaevic)
“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)