this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2023

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175

Human Rights Watch Under Fire For Allegedly Accepting Millions In Qatar Funds (www.i24news.tv)

submitted 11 months ago by gedaliyah@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

26 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

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[+] Stamets@startrek.website 35 points 11 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

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[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 11 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I am so sorry, Stamets. I am an ally with a queer daughter. Every day I worry about the world she's growing up in. She's been very bullied in school, but most kids don't know other kids' sexual orientation at 13, so they didn't bully her for that (although, of course, middle schoolers still love to call each other anti-LGBT slurs), but I'm much more worried about what adults will do to her. At her age, she's not truly aware of how bad it can be, but I do my best to educate her. Her best friend is a trans boy. His rights have already been taken away here in Indiana. He can't get gender-affirming care and the school legally has to deadname him even though his parents are supportive. He's already doing things like cutting himself and vaping, so he's obviously already pretty messed up. I really worry that he won't make it to adulthood. What hope do either of them have when human rights organizations won't even talk about how they're being oppressed and even victims of genocide?

[+] Stamets@startrek.website 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

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[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I get it. I think you've probably seen me say before that Star Trek missed a huge opportunity in the 90s to represent the community when Berman refused to let Bashir and Garak be a couple. It's so sad that it took until Ellen came out in 1997 to even hope for more positive LGBT representation on American television and there's still precious little of it. I can't remember which cereal brand it was, but a few years ago, within the past decade, an ad showed a kid eating cereal and they had two dads and people lost their shit. Even in 2023, much of America (and from what you're saying Canada too) isn't ready for characters like Stamets and it's just wrong. Even the fact that Discovery is on Paramount+, which is still pretty niche, shows it. Heaven forbid a regular network have a couple like Stamets and Culber that have a deep and abiding love for each other. The only other example I can think of right now is the Harley Quinn cartoon and you have to have Max to see it. (But it's really good, I highly recommend it.)

Look what happened with Dylan Mulaney and Bud Light. It wasn't even a huge ad campaign. They were given a few cans of Bud Light and did a photo shoot with them and posted it online. That's it. That's all they did. And suddenly Kid Rock was shooting cans of Bud Light with his rifle. Fucking insanity.

[+] Stamets@startrek.website 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

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[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I just hope representation continues in media. My daughter came way after Ellen and I think she's still too young to really get into Harley Quinn (I don't mind the language or the violence, I just think a lot of the plot, especially the references, would go above her head), but I hope eventually she'll find people on TV that represent her.

I've been showing her Daria. I keep thinking how much better a show it would have been if Daria and Jane's friendship developed into love. The way it's written, I kind of think the creators wanted it to go that way.

[+] Stamets@startrek.website 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

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[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I haven't seen either version, but I've heard very good things. Britain has been more accepting than America (although there's obviously still a lot of bigotry) because there have been some very famous gay actors and comedians in the country throughout the second half of the 20th century. There were two openly gay characters on a very popular 1960s radio sitcom (radio is still a very popular dramatic and comedic medium in the UK) called Hancock's Half Hour. They spoke in Polari, which was well-known as a coded language in the British gay community. Kenneth Williams, who played one of them, was beloved by the British public and he made absolutely no secret of his sexual orientation.

And, of course, there's been a long history of men and women in drag in the UK. Christmas pantos always involve men dressed in women's clothing and women dressed in men's clothing and it wouldn't be Christmas in Britain without them.

[+] Stamets@startrek.website 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

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[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Have you watched Taskmaster? Not only is it incredibly funny, but last season they had a nonbinary comedian on the show and this season there are two gay people, a man and a woman. One of them is Julian Clary who is very frank (and very funny) about his homosexuality and has brought so much value to the season. For other reasons too, but that has always been a big part of his comedy and it's a lot of fun.

More interesting to me was the situation in the show Never Mind the Buzzcocks whose host, Simon Amstell, came out between seasons. No one seemed bothered by it.

[–] TokenBoomer@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Sorry you’re dealing with this. I know families in similar situations. A friend’s daughter tried to Roblox herself, and my daughter’s friend is trans. It’s important as a family to always support them. There are groups on the internet that do meetups for social organization.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

I'm less worried for her, especially now that she's out of that school and doing online school, than I am for her friend. I don't know him well at all, he's only been over at the house once and I was busy at the time and she ran into him by chance at a renaissance festival we went to and I let them go off and look around together, so I can't really say for sure how he's doing, but based on what my daughter says, he's pretty messed up. He's also smoking weed at 13. I admit, I smoked weed when I was 16 or 17, but I was in high school. This boy is in the seventh grade. If I didn't think my daughter wasn't totally disinterested in weed and vaping, I'd consider him a bad influence, but I'm glad she is disinterested because he needs friends.

My worry for my daughter is more long-term. She's mostly safe as a child, for now anyway, but not her friend. His safety is a far bigger concern at his age.

[–] 7of9@startrek.website 2 points 11 months ago

I do not say the following lightly: in order to make a home where I feel truly comfortable I moved to a different country which is societally more accepting than where I was born.

I hope that your daughter and her friend will have the freedom to find their community and build happy lives. Sometimes that means leaving forever.

[–] PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works 4 points 11 months ago

Some of us do give a shit, even some people you wouldn't expect. I try to get people to listen to and understand others' struggles and it's more effective than you think, but it's mostly people in my daily life.

[–] 7of9@startrek.website 2 points 11 months ago

I read yesterday about the PR that Saudi Arabia and UAE have been doing to work their way up a "trust index", among other things.

There are few, if any, uncorrupted organisations or countries, and I now believe that it is simply human nature to be monstrous. Anything else requires herculean strength or absolute bull-headedness.

When I was young I watched Star Trek as an idealist looks Ng towards a brighter future, now I enjoy it as fantasy. If an interplanetary federation were to exist as it is portrayed, humans would have to be a minority to avoid contamination of ideals and truth.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Oh good, even human rights organizations don't care about queer people. What are they supposed to do? Who can they turn to?

[–] mojo@lemm.ee 5 points 11 months ago

They didn't imply they were for human rights

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 5 points 11 months ago (2 children)

The sudden media narrative that virtually every NGO operating in the Middle East is secretly anti-Semitic does not make a lot of sense, and has the appearance of a spin campaign.

[–] gedaliyah@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago

Eh, it could be but it seems like a stretch. I don't think it has to do with antisemitism. It's just kinda like when countries put oil execs in charge of environmental policy. It seems like this has been a problem for a while. People were probably just not paying as much attention in 2020 when that article came out.

[–] Cheradenine@sh.itjust.works 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/i24-news/

Israeli source slinging mud at a group that is calling them out.

[–] gedaliyah@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

rated least biased. Editorially, they cover both sides of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and cover USA news with impartiality. When reporting on former right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, there is a slightly negative tone

Not that mediabiasfactcheck is infallible, but it seems like if anything they are biased against the Right Wing Israeli government. I've heard that MEMRI has problems with translating Arabic in unfavorable ways, so, we will have to wait and see if the leaked documents actually say what they claim.

[–] Fades@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago

don't forget silencing hamas rape victims

[–] Silverseren@kbin.social -1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Okay? So this was revealed in 2020 and the director guy returned the donation. Why is this being written about again 3 years later? Is someone trying to push a narrative in order to deflect from some other subject?

[–] gedaliyah@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago

I'm not sure if it's clear that there was an additional previous incident with HRW accepting money from Saudi Arabia. It's not a long article, and it's not behind a paywall. The current issue is potentially much more damning, accepting millions, not just hundreds of thousands, and this time from Qatar, which has an arguably worse human rights record than Saudi Arabia. Remember all those workers (slaves?) who died to build the World Cup facilities?

Always helps to read the article before posting. 😉

[–] Fades@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago

click the goddamn link if you have questions, jesus fucking christ.