Amid Egypt’s fierce battle against terrorism, HRW stands biased, naive

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Fri, 31 May 2019 - 10:34 GMT

BY

Fri, 31 May 2019 - 10:34 GMT

Human Rights sign- CC via picpedia/ Nick Youngson

Human Rights sign- CC via picpedia/ Nick Youngson

CAIRO – 31 May 2019: With a long history of being politically-biased, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has proved once again to be completely unprofessional, following blindly certain agendas of which depend mainly on some civilians’ credulous witnesses, assuming that these – anonymous testimonials - reflect a real situation on the ground, even when it comes to a fierce battle against cold-blooded murders and terrorists, who killed hundreds of civilians in Sinai, and still even willing to kill more.

According to 2016 official data from the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS), the population of North Sinai reaches 445.811 people, and the population of South Sinai is 169.822; however, HRW decided to ignore these numbers and reflect the reality of what is taking place in Sinai through interviews with only 54 North Sinai residents between 2016 and 2018, as claimed in the report, neglecting all officials sources and recent terrorist attacks.

Lacking all standards of logic and neutrality, HRW gave no evidences for its allegations against the Egyptian forces, narrating one-sided opinion for the events, with no credible sources or documents.

“Everyone knows they are politically-biased, and not related to human rights”, Ayman Aqeel, head of Maat Foundation for Peace, Development and Human Rights said in statements to privately-owned channel Extra-News on Tuesday.

He added that HRW recognized the existence of terrorism in Sinai, but at the same time does not want the army to intervene or take action, considering its efforts to maintain the country’s stability are equal to the terrorists abuses and violations.
Other veteran politicians, including chairperson for Al-Wafd party Bahaa al-Dien Abu Shoka, deeply condemned and criticized the report, describing the report as ‘inaccurate and false’.

Abu Shoka added that HRW report aims at resisting Egypt’s efforts against terrorism. He added that HRW has been attacking Egypt and suspect all of its efforts in ‘unjustified’ way during the past years.

The HRW had faced continuous barrage of criticism over being politically-biased. Since it has been established in 1978, several countries and government have accused HRW of following specific agendas aiming at destabilize the country’s security for other country’s benefits.

In October 2009, HRW founder Robert Bernstein accused the organization of poor research methods and relying on “witnesses whose stories cannot be verified and who may testify for political advantage or because they fear retaliation from their own rulers."

Bernstein said that the organization had “lost critical perspective on events in the Middle East".

Also, according to The Times, HRW “does not always practice the transparency, tolerance and accountability it urges on others." The Times accused HRW of imbalance, alleging that it ignores human-rights abuses in certain regimes while covering other conflict zones (notably Israel) intensively. Although HRW issued five reports on Israel in a 14-month period.

In their correction issued on 4 April 2010, The Times said HRW had published nine articles about the conflict in Kashmir and one report about the post-election abuses in Iran in February 2010. A source told The Times, “Iran is just not a bad guy that they are interested in highlighting. Their hearts are not in it. Let's face it, the thing that really excites them is Israel.” The newspaper quoted Noah Pollak, a HRW critic, who said HRW cares if Israel maltreats Palestinians but “is less concerned if perpetrators are fellow Arab.”

Other evidences have been published widely indicates that HRW have been adopting biased prospective during covering several conflicts including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and conflicts in Latin America, especially in Venezuela.

In September 2008, Venezuela’s government expelled two HRW staff members accused of “anti-state activities”. Then Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said, “These groups, dressed up as human rights defenders, are financed by the United States. They are aligned with a policy of attacking countries that are building new economic models”.

In an article published by journ­al­ist and author Garry Leech in the critical legal thinking website, he said that “Over the past thirty years, HRW has become one of the most recognized non-governmental organizations in the world due to its global promotion of human rights. But despite its claims to be an advocate of international human rights law, the reports issued by HRW over the past decade have increasingly exhibited a bias towards certain rights over others. More precisely, HRW repeatedly focuses on political and civil rights while ignoring social and economic rights.”

On May 21, 2019, Egypt-based Forum for Development and Human Rights Dialog said that the reports issued by the Human Rights Watch are mostly politicized and biased, adding that Human Rights Watch's reports lack professionalism and reference to international conventions.

HRW relies on some extremist activists in Egypt who provide false information about the human rights situation, the forum's head Saeed Abdel Hafez said. He described slamming these reports as “very easy,’ as ‘we only need [to adopt] systematic and human rights responses, away from the language of attacks and insult.”

Egypt slammed many reports for the HRW attacking Egypt for alleged violations of human rights since the ousting of Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated President Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

Egypt’s public prosecution issued a statement in January over Human Rights Watch report that alleges Egypt witnesses human rights violations, saying that the report is irrelevant to the truth.

The prosecution urged the organization to be accurate when publishing data on human rights in Egypt.

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