Kenneth Roth said he first heard about human rights violations from his father, whose Jewish family owned a butcher’s shop near Frankfurt in Hitler’s Germany. His father, Mr Roth recalled, would describe how the Nazis forced the Jews into segregated schools, a harbinger of much worse.
Although Nazi Germany was radically different from Roth’s own childhood in Deerfield, Illinois, he said, “I grew up with this realization of the bad governments that can do.”
Now, after nearly three decades leading Human Rights Watch from an obscure small network of a few scattered offices to a well-funded organization reporting human rights abuses worldwide, said Mr. Roth, 66, a Yale-trained lawyer and former prosecutor. , he’s quitting in August to write a book.
The message of his impending departure, which is expected to be officially announced shortly, is likely to reverberate in the world of fundraising and advocacy for human rights, where the group he led is a powerful force.
“I thought it was important to leave when things are going well at HRW,” Mr Roth said in a telephone interview.
Mr. Roth has been a relentless annoyance to authoritarian governments, denouncing human rights abuses with documented investigative reports that have become the group’s specialty.
The reports have been a catalyst for media coverage and advocacy on issues from the Ethiopian conflict that has forced millions to flee their homes, to serious abuses against Yemenis by opponents in the protracted war in Yemen, to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, traditionally a leading exporter, is exacerbating hunger in the Middle East and North Africa.
Joel Simon, former head of the Committee to Protect Journalists, an advocacy group that once shared offices with Mr Roth’s organization, described him as the “godfather” of the human rights movement.
“We must credit HRW for changing the way journalists and the media as an institution approach the issue of human rights,” said Mr Simon.
Mr Roth described the start of his career as “unfavourable”. After volunteering for six years with Human Rights Watch, Mr. Roth became deputy director in 1987. In 1993 he was appointed Executive Director. “I had never raised a cent in my life,” said Mr. Roth of his appointment.
Under Mr. Roth’s leadership, an organization of 20 employees and regional committees in Europe and America grew to 450 employees with offices in 100 countries.
With the power of a courtroom attorney, perhaps drawn from his earlier career as a New York federal prosecutor and for the Iran Counter-Investigation, Mr. Roth antagonized many autocrats.
Just this month, the government of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia banned the group from operating in the country as part of its wide-ranging crackdown on dissent over the war in Ukraine.
In 2014, Mr. Roth was denied entry to Egypt over a report implicating senior officials, including Egypt’s current president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, in the “widespread and systematic” killing of protesters following the ouster of former President Mohamed. morsi.
In 2020, Mr. Roth was expelled from New York at Hong Kong International Airport upon arrival. He was there to publish his organization’s annual report summarizing the human rights violations. The main essay – written by Mr Roth – argued that China, which controls Hong Kong, is undermining international human rights.
Mr Roth said China’s behavior will remain one of his main concerns long after he leaves his group.
“China is trying to assert its model as a superior model for democracy, saying, ‘We’ve expanded the economy, we’ve fought Covid,’ he said. “They don’t want you to ask, ‘How did Covid start?’ They don’t want you to ask how the less fortunate sections of society are doing because they don’t want you to ask how the Uyghurs, Tibetans or even Han Chinese are doing in rural areas.”
Mr. Roth has also angered the leaders of Western democracies. He was an outspoken critic of the isolationist, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim actions of the Trump administration and the violations of rights and surveillance that resulted from the so-called War on Terror after the September 11 attacks.
After four years of Donald J. Trump’s presidency, the Biden administration was not a cure, Roth said. But he said that under President Biden, who declared his foreign policy to be guided by human rights principles, US attitudes improved.
In December, the Senate voted unanimously to pass legislation that would ban products made in China’s Xinjiang region, over concerns about forced labor by persecuted Muslim minorities.
War between Russia and Ukraine: important developments
The US wants to see Russia weakened. The United States sharpened its coverage of the war in Ukraine, saying that the US goal was not only to thwart the Russian invasion, but also to weaken Russia so that it could no longer carry out such military aggression anywhere.
The United States has also rejoined the UN Human Rights Council, revived membership in the World Health Organization, rejoined the Paris climate accord and restored funding to a number of UN agencies.
But, Mr Roth said, “the Middle East is a gap in this declared willingness to be guided by human rights.”
He pointed to the US government’s involvement in Saudi Arabia, despite internal repression and indiscriminate bombing of Yemenis. And he said there had been “no evolution” in US policy toward Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, particularly in Gaza.
The Israeli government reacted furiously last year to a report by Human Rights Watch that stated it is pursuing a policy of Jewish supremacy over the Palestinians, in Israel and the occupied territories. According to the report, this policy met the legal definition of apartheid.
Mr. Roth has been accused of anti-Semitism for his criticism of Israel.
“In his 30-year reign as head of HRW, Ken Roth has obsessively distorted and exploited human rights to demonize Israel,” said Gerald M. Steinberg, a professor at Bar Ilan University in Israel who gave Op-Eds about Mr Roth. wrote in the Jerusalem Post.
Israel also played a role in internal frictions in Mr Roth’s group. Its founder, Robert L. Bernstein, wrote an op-ed for DailyExpertNews in 2009 denouncing the organization for what he termed its portrayal of Israel as a “pariah state.”
Mr Roth has rejected such criticisms. Implicit in their arguments, Mr. Roth said, was the flawed assumption that democracies are immune from committing human rights abuses. He pointed to former President George W. Bush, whose administration established the Guantánamo detention facility for suspects in September 11 attacks, and condoned waterboarding as an interrogation technique.
“The idea that human rights groups would ignore Guantánamo and the torture just because it was perpetrated by a democracy was ludicrous,” said Mr Roth.
Mr. Roth’s wife, Dr. Annie Sparrow, an Australian pediatrician and fellow human rights defender, remembered the first time she looked at him debateMichael Ignatieff, a former Harvard professor and Canadian lawmaker who had supported the US invasion of Iraq. Mr. Roth, she said, “destroyed” his opponent.
“I was impressed enough to think that if I ever wanted to get married, I could marry that man,” she said. The couple married in 2011.
It remains unclear who will succeed Mr Roth.
“I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who could make a rock-solid argument and beat up dictators with the clarity, confidence and capacity that Ken has,” said Dr. sparrow. “Who’s going to beat up the dictators now?”