1 min read
In the same lecture by former Human Rights Watch founder Robert L. Bernstein, a quote from Natan Sharansky, to teach big wisdom to the so-called "human rights" NGOs.
http://www.unwatch.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=bdKKISNqEmG&b=131... :
At the beginning, I told you how Natan Sharansky came to my hotel and gave me an autographed copy of his latest book Defending Identity. In it, he has some very harsh words concerning human rights organizations. Having spent nine years in Soviet prisons, he has a very clear picture of the difference between free and totalitarian nations.
Here are a few sentences from his book: “The hypocrisy and double standards of the international human rights organizations reflect the disappearance of clear moral criteria that alone can guard human rights. A refusal to see the difference between free and totalitarian societies, between a state at peace and a state at war against terrorist regimes, undermines the universal values on which a claim to human rights is based.”
He adds: “A commitment to human rights is above all a commitment to democracy and freedom and to the right to defend them. To equate all cultures, to refuse to distinguish between those that are democratic and those that are not, is the profoundest betrayal of human rights. . . It is acceptable to hold democracies up to a higher standard as long as you recognize that democracies, by definition, are already maintaining higher standards.”
And he also says: “In its refusal to distinguish democratic from nondemocratic regimes, the human rights movement undercuts its own commitment to democratic freedoms and itself becomes a tool of undemocratic powers.”
The victims of human rights' abuses like Sharansky in former Soviet Union, know better than the million-dollar spending NGOs representing the opinions of their bigoted leaders.