Claiming ‘bias’, Israel denies visa to rights activist

JERUSALEM (AA) - The Israeli authorities have denied a work visa for an employee of Human Rights Watch (HRW) amid accusations the group is "biased against Israel" and promotes "Palestinian propaganda", the NGO said Friday.

"On Feb. 20, the Israeli Foreign Ministry… denied HRW’s application for a work permit for its Israel and Palestine director," the New York-based rights watchdog said in a statement.

It went on to cite a letter from Israel’s Foreign Ministry in which the latter accused HRW of engaging in politics and promoting “Palestinian propaganda”.

The same letter, the NGO said, had claimed HRW was “not a real human rights group”.

HRW responded by accusing Israel of “seeking to limit the space” for local and international human rights groups both in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.

“This decision and its spurious rationale should worry anyone concerned about Israel’s commitment to basic democratic values,” Iain Levine, HRW’s deputy executive director for program, said in a statement.

“It is disappointing that the Israeli government seems unable or unwilling to distinguish between justified criticisms of its actions and hostile political propaganda,” he asserted.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon, for his part, defended the move, describing HRW as a “fundamentally biased and anti-Israeli organization with a clearly hostile agenda”.

“We are no longer willing to grant visas to people who come with the clear goal of harming Israel,” Nahshon was quoted as saying by Israeli daily Haaretz.