Letter Urging Human Rights Watch to Remove
Antisemitic U.N. Official Richard Falk From Its Board
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The following letter was sent today to Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth.
Kenneth Roth
Executive Director
Human Rights Watch
350 Fifth Avenue, 34th Floor
New York, NY 10118-3299
United States of America
December 17, 2012
Dear Mr. Roth,
We are shocked to discover that Richard Falk—the U.N. official whose antisemitic remarks and 9/11 conspiracy theories have been condemned by British Prime Minister David Cameron, U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay—is a board member of your organization.
By legitimizing this racist and enemy of human rights, your organization undermines its own founding principles. We urge you to remove him immediately.
According to your website, Mr. Falk is a member of Human Rights Watch’s prestigious Santa Barbara Committee, composed of prominent citizens who play a key role in your organization’s global work.
We find it astonishing that Mr. Falk would be rewarded by such a prestigious position with Human Rights Watch, one of the world’s largest human rights organizations.
As a keen follower of the U.N. and its Human Rights Council, you surely know the following:
• That Falk is so extreme in his support for the Hamas terrorist organization that even the Palestinian Authority—as revealed in a Wikleaks cable, and which Falk himself admits—has sought to remove him, on grounds that he is a “partisan of Hamas“;
• That Falk last week published an article attempting to downplay, reinterpret and justify the latest call by Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal to destroy Israel;
• That Falk last year published on his website an antisemitic cartoon showing a dogwearing a Jewish head covering, and with “USA” written on its body, urinating on a depiction of justice and devouring a bloody skeleton;
Antisemitic cartoon published by Human Rights Watch committee member Richard Falk on his website.
