Kenneth Roth - Criticism

Criticism

See also: Criticism of Human Rights Watch

Under Roth's leadership, Human Rights Watch has been criticized for perceived biases.

Venezuela

On December 17, 2009 118 scholars from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, México, the UK, the US, Venezuela and other countries publicly criticized HRW published an open letter to the HRW Board of Directors in response to an HRW report, A Decade Under Chávez: Political Intolerance and Lost Opportunities for Advancing Human Rights in Venezuela. The report was criticized for bias against the government of Venezuela and its President, Hugo Chavez, stating that it "does not meet even the most minimal standards of scholarship, impartiality, accuracy, or credibility." One of the letter's authors, Hugh O'Shaughnessy, accused HRW of using false and misleading information, and said the HRW report was "put together with the sort of know-nothing Washington bias..." Kenneth Roth responded, stating that the letter misrepresented "both the substance and the source material of the report.".

In late 2012 Roth was criticized for stating that Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador, all members of South America's Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), were the "most abusive" states in South America, despite the dire situation in Colombia, where over 250,000 people have been killed by right wing death squads.

Rwanda

Fred Oluoch-Ojiwah, of Rwanda’s New Times newspaper, questions Roth’s impartiality and equates his criticism of Rwanda’s human rights record to a “love affair” with the “genocidaires” that carried out the Rwandan Genocide of 1994.

“As a western human rights personality …will always fail to understand the intricacies and complexities surrounding the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi. Wrapping it up simplistically the way he has done will only serve to undo the gains already registered in driving the very delicate process of bringing forth a new dispensation in Rwanda and by extension the African Great Lakes region,” Oluoch-Ojiwah wrote.

Israel and Palestine

Kenneth Roth has been criticized by the Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor for allegedly being biased against Israel. Gerald M. Steinberg has been a long-time critic of Roth's role as head of Human Rights Watch from 1993. Writing in a 2004 Jerusalem Post article in response to Roth's op-ed in which Roth accused NGO Monitor of disregarding basic facts, "fictitious allegations of bias" and a "fantasy-based discourse" which "does a deep disservice to Israel",

In August 2006, during the war between Hezbollah and Israel, Roth rejected criticism of HRW’s allegations against Israel, writing in a letter to the editor of the The New York Sun: "An eye for an eye — or, more accurately in this case, twenty eyes for an eye — may have been the morality of some more primitive moment. But it is not the morality of international humanitarian law which Mr. Bell pretends to apply." In response, the head of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) referred to Roth’s rhetoric as a reflection of "classic anti-Semitic stereotype about Jews".

In reaction to Richard Goldstone's recantation of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict report, HRW Founder Robert Bernstein said to the Jerusalem Post in April 2011, referring to Roth, that it "is time for him to follow Judge Goldstone’s example and issue his own mea culpa.”

Ethiopia

The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has taken issue with the credibility of Roth’s accusations that Ethiopia’s government is corrupt and uses international aid funding for “repressive purposes.” The EHRC accused Roth of impartiality caused by a desire to “appease…wealthy financiers.” It cited his evaluation of the Democratic Institution Program (DIP) as “superficial” and claimed that his allegations of corruption were based on “poor methodology.” EHRC also called Roth’s recommendations a “contradiction” that called “for the promotion of human rights at the expense of human rights programs and their implementers.”