15 December 2016•Update: 15 December 2016
By Hakan Copur
WASHINGTON
Kenneth Roth, who has been the executive director of Human Rights Watch since 1993, has come under fire for comments about the PKK and its affiliates.
Roth, assessing Turkey as a "semi-democracy" in its annual report, has been criticized for not distancing his group from the PKK -- listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S., and the EU.
Human Rights Watch operates in more than 80 countries and is one of the world's leading international human rights bodies. But it uses "soft expressions" when referring to the terrorist group and its bloody attacks on Turkey.
While Roth criticized Ankara’s measures against the Fetullah Terrorist Organization and the PKK, alluding to “human rights” after the July 15 coup attempt in Turkey, his report was “indifferent” to the unjust suffering of Turkish victims who have been subjected to terror attacks by the PKK.
In a large part of the report, he goes out of his way to try to make a point that “Turkey oppressing opposition Kurdish groups” but avoids similar language when referring to the PKK -- raising questions about the fairness and objectivity of the HRW, its executive and a clear double standard the group has employed. HRW under Roth is no stranger to criticism, regularly lambasted for what observers say are biases and misrepresentations on a host of issues from Venezuela to African conflicts to Israel.
Roth’s tweets on social media following the Dec. 10 deadly twin bomb attacks in Istanbul sparked reactions.
Two days after the attacks killed at least 44 victims -- a number that could still rise -- he tweeted: “But there is not a reason for Kurdish militia to bomb civilians”.
The fact that he explicitly used “terrorism” in statements and pointed to Daesh after attacks in Paris in 2015 but failed to implement similar vocabulary for PKK terrorist attacks -- it brings to mind the so-called good terrorist versus bad terrorist debate.
Roth also shared on Dec. 8 a report by the New York Times that claimed the PKK group has as “gender equality”, further blurring the lines and failing to present the terror group in its proper light.
Roth, who has shown a sympathetic approach to PKK terrorists and its political extensions, appears not to have the same regard for victims – the dead and the wounded – of terror attacks.
-"Expressing sympathy towards PKK’s political views should not be a crime”
In reviewing claims on “Iraqi Kurdish Regional government blocking human aid for Ezidis in Sincar”, Roth ignored the existence of terror organizations in the region and said the “PKK’s existence is not an excuse”.
The statement appears to show Roth’s support for aid supplies for Ezidis, however, “not disturbed by PKK’s existence”.
Born in 1955, Roth graduated from the Yale University Law School.
As a lawyer, he has collaborated with human rights organizations since the 1970’s and joined HRW in 1987.
He has sat in the executive chair of the organization for nearly 24 years.
HRW originated in New York and its 2015 budget was more than $65 million.
The group is funded in part by big name donors that include George Soros’s Open Society Institute and the Ford Foundation. In 2010, Soros pledged $100 million to HRW over the next 10 years.
