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The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) is a non-profit organization that works on “defending human rights and promoting liberal democracy in the Americas.” The Human Rights Foundation was founded in 2005 by film producer Thor Halvorssen. Its offices are in New York City.
Philosophy
The Human Rights Foundation maintains that although current debates about whether it is possible to define universal economic and cultural rights are useful and important, those debates tend to divide those who would otherwise be strong allies in the struggle for rights. Its definition of human rights sidesteps those debates, focusing instead on the essential ideals of freedom of self-determination and freedom from tyranny.
Accordingly, the Human Rights Foundation adheres to the definition of human rights as put forth in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1976), believing that all individuals are entitled to the right to speak freely, the right to worship in the manner of their choice, the right to freely associate with those of like mind, the right to acquire and dispose of property, the right to leave and enter their country, the right to equal treatment and due process under law, the right to be able to participate in the government of their country, freedom from arbitrary detainment or exile, freedom from slavery and torture, and freedom from interference and coercion in matters of conscience.
In particular, the Human Rights Foundation seeks to sustain the struggle for liberty in those areas where it is presently under threat.
Methodology
The Human Rights Foundation operates by its own definition of transparency. According to the organisation's website, this means that it is willing to make public all of its research and it claims to be open to accepting new information and criticisms that might undermine its positions. However, in spite of these claims, the HRF does not publish annual financial reports and accounts (the latest accounts found on the HRF website are for 2006) nor information about who funds the organisation.
Projects
The Human Rights Foundation published four reports in November 2006, all case studies of human rights violations in Venezuela. HRF is also in the midst of starting university campus branches willing to support and sponsor events concerning HRF's mission, to support freedom in the Americas. The first campus to begin a branch of the Human Rights Foundation is George Mason University in Fairfax, VA.
The Human Rights Foundation screened its documentary film "The Sugar Babies: The Plight of the Children of Agricultural Workers in the Sugar Industry", at Florida International University on June 27th, 2007. The documentary about human trafficking of Haitians in the Dominican Republic drew protest from both Dominican government officials and from the Fanjul family, one of the largest beneficiaries of the human trafficking depicted in the film, with a sugar empire that dwarfs the U.S. Sugar Corporation.
International Council
The International Council of the Human Rights Foundation includes former political prisoners Vladimir Bukovsky, Palden Gyatso, Armando Valladares, Ramón José Velásquez, Elie Wiesel, and Harry Wu, as well as law professor Kenneth Anderson, chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov, former Estonian prime minister Mart Laar, political commentator Álvaro Vargas Llosa, and public policy professor James Q. Wilson.
Controversies
Support for illegal autonomy referendum in Bolivia
The Human Rights Foundation was criticised for sending observers to the local referendum on autonomy which took place in Santa Cruz in May 2008. This was perceived as legitimising the referendums which had been declared illegal and unconstitutional by the Bolivian National Electoral Court.
Links with foreign mercenaries operating in Bolivia
In April 2009, staff of the HRF were implicated in the funding of illegal mercenaries operating in Bolivia, who were apparently planning to assasinate the Bolivian president Evo Morales and other political leaders in the country. The public prosecutor in charge of investigating the case of the mercenaries, who were apprehended by the Bolivian police, identified Hugo Achá, the director of the Santa Cruz branch of the HRF as an associate of the mercenary cell, who had acted as a conduit for the funding of the group. It was then revealed that the Human Rights Foundation did not have a license to operate in Bolivia.
Notes
- Mission. Human Rights Foundation. Retrieved 10 December 2006.
- HRF's Transparency. Human Rights Foundation. Retrieved 10 December 2006.
- HRF's Transparency. Human Rights Foundation. Retrieved May 2009.
- Reports. Human Rights Foundation. Retrieved 10 December 2006.
- Sugar Babies Screening. Palm Beach Post. Retrieved 11 July 2007.
- Agencia Boliviana de Informacion, 3 May 2009
- Bolivia Information Forum Bulletin May 2008
- La Razon newspaper, April 30, 2009
- Erbol, 4 May 2009
- Agencia Boliviana de Informacion, 3 May 2009
External links
- Human Rights Foundation website
- Full text of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights