Rights for the Few, Wrongs for the Many
Human Rights Watch has sunk to a new level of hypocrisy, with their call not to execute the Butcher of Baghdad (and Agence France-Presse’s full assistance in spreading such vile excrement). Why they wish to grant him “rights” which his victims never got, I don’t understand.
From the article:
Human Rights Watch urged the Iraqi government not to execute Saddam Hussein, describing the trial that convicted the former president for crimes against humanity as “deeply flawed.”
Where were they when Saddam Hussein and his sons were running people through plastic shredders, feet first? Where was HRW when Uday Hussein’s iron maiden was discovered?
“Imposing the death penalty, indefensible in any case, is especially wrong after such unfair proceedings,” said Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch’s international justice programme.
It isn’t “indefensible in any case.” Just ask the families of Clarence Ray Allen‘s victims. He was already behind bars, but he still presented a danger to society. And HRW would have him still alive, still endangering people.
“That a judicial decision was first announced by Iraq’s national security adviser underlines the political interference that marred Saddam Hussein’s trial,” he added.
No, the announcement was left to the national security adviser, so that he could take measures to prepare security forces for the announcement.
Saddam was sentenced to death in November after a trial lasting more than a year for ordering the deaths of 148 Shiite civilians from the town of Dujail, north of Baghdad, after an assassination attempt in 1982.
Punishing the whole town for the “crime” of a few? This in itself should irritate HRW, but noooo.
A panel of Iraqi judges rejected his appeal and upheld the sentence earlier Tuesday, setting the stage for the ousted dictator to be hanged within 30 days.
Again, this is more than Saddam’s victims ever got, but don’t expect HRW to notice this inconvenient little fact.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said the Iraqi appeals court should have conducted a thorough legal review of the verdict.
How does HRW know that the case didn’t get a proper review? A panel of judges (and their numerous assistants, interns, secretaries, and other staffers) determined that the appeal was without merit.
The rights watchdog last month identified serious flaws in Saddam’s trial, describing the trial in a 97-page report as “marred by so many procedural and substantive flaws that the verdict is unsound.”
How many “trials” under Saddam had the same flaws? I heard no cries from HRW for “justice” over those cases.
Human Rights Watch routinely opposes the use of the death penalty, describing the punishment as inherently inhumane.
Unless the “criminal” is someone who converted from Islam to Christianity. Or a Muslim-born woman who highlights Islamic misogyny.Or one of the ~5 million Jews in Israel. Or any number of other “infractions” claimed by Muslims, in which cases HRW grants consent with their comparative silence. I would hardly call this opposition “routine.”
It’s time for Human Rights Watch to get over their selective “tolerance” and face facts: their history is replete with defense of murderous dictators, but no similarly vigorous defense of the victims of these self-declared thugs. Without a serious re-thinking of their core principles, Human Rights Watch risks falling into the dustbin of history.
