In 2020, the online news organization The Intercept revealed that HRW’s then-Executive Director, Ken Roth, accepted a $470,000 donation from a Saudi billionaire based on the condition that HRW would not use the money to protect the rights of the persecuted LGBTQ-plus community in the Middle East.
Roth was compelled to return the donation after The Intercept report.
I agree. Any individual story may or may not be accurate but that’s not the point. We’ve seen the very abrupt and simultaneous reporting and discussion on many scandals in a variety of human rights organizations, usually based on innuendo or very shaky evidence. My suspicion would be Israel is behind this but there are many other governments that are hostile to independent NGOs which could be taking advantage of the situation to undermine trust in them.