HRW and Its “Finite Resources” or Where is Mauritania? And Why Isn’t HRW Reporting on Slavery There?

In response to Robert Bernstein’s shattering October 20 New York Times Oped that HRW places disproportionate focus on Israel, members of HRW’s board responded that

“Human Rights Watch does not devote more time and energy to Israel than to other countries in the region, or in the world. We’ve produced more than 1,700 reports, letters, news releases, and other commentaries on the Middle East and North Africa since January 2000”

Well, one country HRW is not reporting on is the African country of Mauritania. HRWs “Browse by Country” page does not list Mauritania and neither is the country found on its Africa or North Africa pages. Mauritania is also conspicuously absent from HRW’s 2009 World Report.

The Islamic Republic of Mauritania is quite notorious, however for human rights violations. The government only criminalized slavery in 2007 and the enslavement of the black African population there remains rampant (estimates put the number around 600,000). A cached version of what appears to have been at one time HRW’s “Mauritania” page only lists two publications– one from 2003 and one from 2001 – and neither of these address slavery. Its only report documenting the repression of Mauritania’s black population by white “Moor” rulers dates back to 1994 – FIFTEEN YEARS ago. Even Amnesty International has several reports from 2008 on the systematic torture that is routine in the country.

Hmmm….Twenty Eight statements (and counting) in six months lobbying for the Goldstone mission and Zero reports on slavery in Mauritania in fifteen years? I guess the slaves of Mauritania will continue to suffer because as Ken Roth admitted in an interview in the Tablet, “’Why are we more concerned about the [Gaza] war rather than on other rights abuses?’ Well, we’ve got to pick and choose-we’ve got finite resources.”
blog.ngo-monitor.org/other-ngos/human-rights-watch/hrw-and-its-%E2%80%9Cfinite-resources%E2%80%9D-or-where-is-mauritania-and-why-isn%E2%80%99t-hrw-reporting-on-slavery-there/