Monday, February 21, 2011

Journalists and HRW got Libya Wrong

Omri Ceren, writing yesterday at the Commentary blog, told how Human Rights Watch Middle East and North Africa Director Sarah Leah Whitson was all agog back in 2009 about how things in Libya were getting better. Her article appeared in Foreign Policy, and is now behind a paywall. Apparently, however, it contained the following paragraph:
What Fathi al-Jahmi died for is starting to spread in the country. For the first time in memory, change is in the air in Libya. The brittle atmosphere of repression has started to fracture, giving way to expanded space for discussion and debate [and] proposals for legislative reform… I left more than one meeting stunned at the sudden openness of ordinary citizens, who criticized the government and challenged the status quo with newfound frankness. A group of journalists we met with in Tripoli complained about censorship… [b]ut that hadn’t stopped their newspapers… Quryna, one of two new semi private newspapers in Tripoli, features page after page of editorials criticizing bureaucratic misconduct and corruption… The spirit of reform, however slowly, has spread to the bureaucracy as well… the real impetus for the transformation rests squarely with a quasi-governmental organization, the Qaddafi Foundation for International Charities and Development.
At about the same time, Libyan expatriate Mohamed Eljahmi, whose borther Fathi had recently died, wrote an anguished column about his death and the indifference of the American government, but also about Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch:
It's not just politicians who should reflect on how they handled Fathi's case. My brother's death should give prominent human rights organizations pause. For nearly a year, both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch hesitated to advocate publicly for Fathi's case, because they feared their case workers might lose access to Libyan visas.
Only on the day of Fathi's death did Human Rights Watch issue a press release that announced what we had known for two months: That Fathi appeared frail and emaciated, could barely speak and could not lift his arms or head. When the researchers asked him on April 25 and 26 if he was free to leave prison, he said no. When they asked him if he wanted to go home, he said yes.
It's not just politicians who should reflect on how they handled Fathi's case. My brother's death should give prominent human rights organizations pause. For nearly a year, both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch hesitated to advocate publicly for Fathi's case, because they feared their case workers might lose access to Libyan visas.
Only on the day of Fathi's death did Human Rights Watch issue a press release that announced what we had known for two months: That Fathi appeared frail and emaciated, could barely speak and could not lift his arms or head. When the researchers asked him on April 25 and 26 if he was free to leave prison, he said no. When they asked him if he wanted to go home, he said yes.
Perhaps because they still fear antagonizing Gaddafi, in their May 21 statement Human Rights Watch didn't call for an independent investigation and stopped short of holding the Libyan regime responsible for Fathi's death.
Amnesty International also compromised. They moved an April 2009 demonstration originally slated to occur in front of Libya's U.N. mission to the U.S. mission instead so as not to antagonize Gaddafi. For the same reason, they ignored pleas for a public statement about Fathi's deterioration. While an Amnesty delegation was in Libya when Fathi died, the Libyan regime refused it permission to travel to Libya's second largest city.
Experience has shown me that country researchers in marquee human rights organizations are vulnerable to the regime's manipulation. Sarah Leah Whitson is one of the Human Rights Watch researchers who last saw Fathi before he was rushed to Jordan. She wrote an article for Foreign Policy upon her return from Libya, where she described efforts by the Gaddafi Foundation for International Charities and Development, which is headed by the Libyan leader's son, Saif al-Islam, as a "spring." The organization is actively menacing my brother's family. Some family members continue to endure interrogation, denial of citizenship papers and passports, round the clock surveillance and threats of rape and physical liquidation.
Not all organizations compromised their principles. Physicians for Human Rights didn't compromise with the Gaddafi regime and called for an independent medical investigation after Fathi's death. One day, when free media penetrates Libya, my brother's friends and admirers will learn how the American Jewish Committee sought to rally world leaders to Fathi's cause.
When the American Jewish Committee is more active than Human Rights Watch in trying to save the life of an Arab human rights activist being killed by his government, you know the world is a strange place.

Anyways, all that was long ago, in 2009. Now it's 2011, and people look at Libya differently than they used to. Or rather, uninformed people do - journalists at CNN, Reuters, the Washington Post, Financial Times, the New York Times and others. Michael Totten, on the other hand, got it right all along. Omri has done the research for us, in an absolutely devastating post which should be taught at all journalism schools the world over, but never will be.

Maybe that's why Michael Totten was the only one who got it right; he didn't go to journalism school. Nor did he train as a human rights activist.

9 comments:

Silke said...

Michael Lewis a journalist and an IMHO rightfully bestselling author of books visits a journalism school:
Enjoy!

http://www.tnr.com/article/j-school-confidential

German Feingeist (fine spirit) Arno Widmann reviewed a book by Ghadafi - I hope Google translate will do it justice, just as a teaser, so you'll know it will be worth the trouble: It starts with: "this is one of the most important books of this autumn." and that's the low-gear part. BTW it was written as recently as November 2004.

Der Spaßmacher als Tyrann

Es ist eines der wichtigsten Bücher dieses Herbstes. Man möchte es jedem politisch interessierten Menschen in die Hand drücken und ihm sagen: "Lies! Lies es! Lies es genau! Lies!"


http://www.perlentaucher.de/artikel/1962.html#a2

Y. Ben-David said...

Having the official media criticize "corruption of bureaucratics" is an old trick of totalitarian regimes. At the height of Stalin's terror in 1937-1938, citizens were encouraged to send letters to the editor of the official newspapers (there was no other kind) with complaints about abuses and inefficiencies of bureacrats and the newpapers ran them. Criticism of "the Vohzd"-Stalin, was, of course, forbidden. This tactic was a way of letting of steam, diverting public anger away from the real source of their oppression and was a good way to deceive gullible outsiders.

AKUS said...

HRW and Amnesty, to name the two worst examples, are morally bankrupt organizations, closely followed by Oxfam.

NormanF said...

Qaddafi was always a thug but now he's a mass murderer. This is what it takes to stay in power until you die - kill every one who resists you and take no prisoners. And the regime obeys that injunction faithfully in Libya.

Barry Meislin said...

You know I really wish all this, um, unpleasantness in the Arab world would just stop. Stop. Right now.

So that we can get back to the really important (not to mention safer) business---imperative---of bashing the Zionist Entity.

File under: "Priorities, priorities."

Silke said...

Don't be impatient, Barry!

With all this new material that has to be worked into the hitherto developed "narrative" the artist journalists are currently a bit overwhelmed.

I am willing to bet that we'll soon see grand new theories peddling writers competing vigorously and mercilessly as to who can come up with the best.

I personally think they should revive the thing about the noses, it would give everybody such a feeling of having come full circle, feel reassured by the familiar.

Barry Meislin said...

But Silke, even the Hungarians know the score:

http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=209345

Yes, even the Hungarians!

Silke said...

right now I think JPost is confused - I checked the Hungarian Foreign Minister is according to Wikipedia decidedly male and not a Doppelgänger of the Baroness.

As to the ugly Baroness, do you think that voluptuous white shawl is a Schamtuch (in German may be used for other than the nether regions?) to spare her the embarassment of having her décolleté photoshopped again? Did she maybe think Israelis might be as squeamish or as interested in her cleavage like those other Iranian guys were?

About Hungarians there is something with them having a new press law which judging from the elaborate explanations I keep hearing must be something pretty awful, but somehow nobody like to wag the finger and say its a no-no. Well, they are Europeans, they must be perfect democrats, n'est-ce pas?

Barry said...

AKUS,

Just to add something that you might already know and that is that HRW newest appointee to its advisory board is Shawan Jabarin.
Human Rights Watch's bad record on Israel got worse