NGO Unable to Make its Peace with Global Oppression

Human Rights Watch, a New York based NGO you may have heard of, has been hitting the news pretty hard lately with two of its particular brand of well-researched, voluminous condemnation.

The organisation firstly condemned Syria's Supreme State Security Court, set up in 1968 to assist the regime in wiping out Communism. The court has since been used the court as an instrument to try people on behalf of the state, rather than the people, and the HRW accuses it of gross violations of justice including torture and limited access to lawyers. 

Another high profile condemnation, at least in the African press, has been that of the Angolan electoral system. Angola has just had parliamentary elections this past year, which many (notably the HRW) criticised for being if not rigged, then severely problematic. The HRW has optimistically called on the Angolan president, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, to fix the problems prior to the presidential elections in 2009.

The HRW does stuff like this literally all the time. They have a broadly symbiotic relationship with Amnesty International, which handles human rights as well but focuses more on mass mobilisation. When reactionary dictators and their apologists clamour that Amnesty International is a poorly researched mouthpiece that is exaggerating the condition of oppressed peoples, Human Rights Watch is there with a 270 page report evincing in excruciatingly monotonous detail that things are really, seriously, verifiably shit.  

If you want to peruse their reports on Syria's SSSC or the Angolan electoral system, go here and here, respectively. They both have pretty concise executive summaries, which makes it a bit easier for all of us.