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 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.