Updated: Why are the defenders of human rights silent?
A few days ago, PPT added this at the end of the post “An unspoken lese majeste“:
How more obvious does the political use of lese majeste have to become before one of the self-appointed agencies of human rights makes any comment? Where is Human Rights Watch? Amnesty International? (We know, AI is hopeless, but maybe their membership has some spine?) State Department? And, where is the National Human Rights Commission? (We admit NHRC is also hopeless and in the regime’s pocket.) All have failed and their failure allows the royalist regime to maintain its repression.
Andrew Spooner
Asia Provocateur has taken up the issue of international human rights agencies before – notably Amnesty International – and now looks at Human Rights Watch. He asks some important question in his post on HRW. We quote Andrew Spooner here (including his links):
So why do Brad Adams and HRW persist with their unsubstantiated and dubious claims? I asked HRW’s press office and they declined to comment. What is also interesting is HRW’s strong statement regarding Libyan use of cluster munitions (HRW’s statement offered plenty of moral ammunition for the USA and NATO’s military intervention in Libya) while HRW had only complete and abject silence on Thailand’s use of the same against Cambodian villages.
One could hypothesise that Mr. Adams is so overcome with Thaksin-hatred his judgement has become clouded. Or that his organisation doesn’t have to be accountable to anyone regarding Thailand, least of all provide proper citable evidence for its claims. There is also still much to be revealed about HRW’s ongoing silence regarding lese majeste cases in Thailand – would their position in Thailand be threatened if they did campaign on the continued imprisonment and ill-treatment of Da Torpedo or other lese majeste prisoners? Don’t they owe it to their 1000s of members, supporters and donors to say so if that is the case?
One other worry could be that when organisations such as HRW and Amnesty get caught up in a regime’s misinformation they too have a vested interest in continuing and circulating such misinformation. At present these organisations refuse any notion of transparency or accountability where Thailand is concerned. The question that must be asked of both HRW and Amnesty is who is watching the watchmen?
Update: PPT has now seen confidentially-supplied evidence that tends to corroborate the claims that Spooner has made regarding a kind of collaborative relationship between AI and Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on lese majeste.
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