May 15, 2015

HRW's Kenneth Roth Continues Unfounded Accusations With Another False Picture

Last week we found that Human Rights Watch director Kenneth Roth used an image of destruction in Gaza caused by Israel to accuse the Syrian government of indiscriminate use of "barrel bombs". We wrote:

This is thereby at least the third time HRW is using a wrongly attributed pictures to depict current enemies of U.S. imperialism as having causing the damage the U.S. empire and/or its friends have caused. That is not mere bias by HRW. It is willful fraud.

After our post and many protests on Twitter Kenneth Roth retracted and deleted that tweet. He posted:



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Not being happy about having to retract the accusing tweet he sent out a new one again accusing the Syrian government of causing the depicted destruction through "barrel bombs":



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The picture is, of course on must say by now, not of destruction caused by Syrian government "barrel bombs".

For this tweet Kenneth Roth appropriated an AFP picture taken by George Ourfalian and distributed by the the Gettyimages agency.



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The caption of the original Getty image reads:

A general view shows destruction in the Hamidiyeh neighbourhood of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo as local popular committee fighters, who support the Syrian government forces, try to defend the traditionally Christian district on the third day of intense battles with Islamic State group jihadists on April 9, 2015. AFP PHOTO / GEORGE OUFALIAN

The destruction in the picture is of a neighborhood attacked by anti-Syrian Jihadists and defended by pro-Syrian forces in support of the government. Is Kenneth Roth insinuating that the Syrian government caused that damage by "barrel bombing" its supporters? Or did rather the "moderate rebels" he seemingly supports destroyed those buildings.

Judging from the pattern of image usage by Human Rights Watch and Kenneth Roth we can safely assume that the second is the case.

And while Kenneth Roth is waxing about "barrel bombs" in Syria, which are no different than any general purpose air delivered bomb, we are still waiting for his tweet against the use of U.S. made thermobaric bombs by the Saudi government in Yemen where such weapons against hardened structures are incidentally killing and maiming many innocent people.

With his very selective accusations and false pictures Kenneth Roth has turned Human Rights Watch into a mere outrage-for-profit public relation agency on the payroll of "western" governments and various Gulf dictatorships.

Posted by b on May 15, 2015 at 6:16 UTC | Permalink

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