Host: Hi, Ngofeen here. In the spring of 2024 we did an episode about shipbreaking in Bangladesh and what it’s doing to the workers and environment there. We’re going to play it for you again… but before we do so, I need to make a disclaimer. In the past year a lot has changed in Bangladesh…

Julia: Yeah, I mean, so May we recorded the podcast and then two months later, there was a massive revolution led by students.

Host: That's Julia Bleckner of Human Rights Watch. She will be more fully introduced shortly, since she’s in the episode you're about to listen to. But we asked her for a quick update, about this uprising in Bangladesh led by students...

Julia: … who came out into the streets and essentially demanded that the autocratic government led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina step down. They eventually deposed the prime minister and she fled the country on a helicopter and has not been back since and now we have an interim government in place that is reforming absolutely everything: the police, the environmental work, everything in the government. And so, pretty much everything has changed.

Host: OK, so now we're going to play our episode. Then, afterwards, we're going to hear a bit more from Julia, about what these changes mean for the shipbreaking workers in Bangladesh...

Host: The first thing I saw was a picture of the ships. Imagine a ship the size of the Titanic, even bigger, beached on the shore.   It's made of bare, rusted metals, like the inside of an oxidized car under the hood, or a neglected bicycle chain rotting out into red gritty metal.  

The ship is massive. The bottom touches the sand and the top is so high up from the ground, it feels like, like looking up at the goals you'll never accomplish. Then, you notice all around you the beach, it's completely lifeless - no crabs, no fishermen.   And that's when you realize that there's not just one ship, it's ship after ship after ship broken down into husks.   They've been torn apart - what looks like charred bits of shipwreck rubble. And honestly, it feels like you're at the end of the world.   Like the ground looks volcanic, everything is brown, black, there's orange from hellfires burning and gray plumes of smoke.  

And then slowly the sounds come to you. The waves, and then the drilling. And then you notice people, some of them are holding drills. Some of them are wrapped in t-shirts. Remember those faces wrapped in t-shirts. They’ll be important. 

They kind of look the way that miners look underground - covered in what feels like soot.   And then you notice everyone is brown, and many of them are afraid for their lives. ‘Nails hit us’, they say. ‘Flames hit us’. You can get trapped inside these massive ships and they catch on fire. Pipes explode. One worker describes being blown back in an explosion with so much force that his back breaks. 

The International Labour Organization, the ILO, has called this one of the most dangerous jobs on the planet.  

This is Rights and Wrongs, a podcast from Human Rights Watch.   I’m Ngofeen Mputubwele. I take you to the places in the world where human rights are most in danger, telling you the story through the experiences of the people on the front lines of history.    

On this episode, we’re talking about shipbreaking 

Bangledeshi voice - Babul: It is a tough job. I have burn marks all over my body.  

Host: And we are in Bangladesh… 

Bangladeshi voice - Farid: Now we don’t have a safe place anymore. So, who will take responsibility? I can’t hold any one owner accountable when I don’t know exactly which ship made me ill.   

Bangladeshi voice - Rehana: He couldn’t tell her my dad had died on the spot. He was at a loss.   But we need our father for protection. 

Host: Bangladesh is a country I don't know a lot about going into this… 

Ngofeen: The French, they're like a people who love simple food. 

Host: And so .  .  . 

Ngofeen: The Italians are people who love craftsmanship. 

Host: I talked to someone from there and asked.  

Ngofeen: The Congolese, where my family's from, they love drama and they love clothes. How would you describe Bangladeshi people and culture? 

Rizwana: Bangladeshi people are fish lovers and very noisy.  

Host: Okay.   What kind of noisy?  

Rizwana: If you come out of the airport of Dhaka, you will never find any other airport that has so many noises to welcome people.  You know, we speak loudly.   There are very few soft spoken people in this country. At times we sound as if we are quarreling, but our language actually is very rhythmic and it's very sweet. I mean, whispering is not in our culture. You know what I mean? 

Ngofeen: Yes, I do know exactly what you mean. 

Host: So this is Rizwana - Rizwana Hasan. She's an attorney. She told me she's the only full time environmental attorney in the entire country of Bangladesh.  We talked as she was celebrating Ramadan not too long ago.  Rizwana told me about her first trip to a shipbreaking site. 

Ngofeen: Is it at a beach? 

Rizwana: It is a beach, very much a beach. It is under the sky, in the open, on the beach itself.  

Ngofeen: And can you just describe what it looked like that first time that you went? 

Rizwana: Huge vessels on the beach. You could see it from, um, you know, say half a kilometer away. It was few workers all working with their hands in different parts of the vessel, trying to dismantle the vessel. You could see the torch lights because they will actually be using the torch to separate different parts of the vessels. So, what was really painful for me to see is people working under the sky in scorching heat. In 36, 39 degree temperature without any shade coming from anywhere. 

So the fact that they were working without any protection in that heat just took me back to Dubai, where I see many Bangladeshi laborers. working in buildings, painting buildings, plastering the outer side of the building in scorching heat. And every time I see these laborers, I feel very bad for them. 

So now, now I saw this, the same thing happening in my own country. 

Ngofeen: And I was just Googling, you said 36 to 39 degrees which is like 96 to 102 degrees Fahrenheit.  That is insanely hot to be working outside.  

Rizwana: Absolutely. It's very hot. 

Julia: Yes, the violations are happening on Bangladesh's beaches, but the fact that the ships are there is not entirely Bangladesh's fault. The involvement of corporations, the EU and all of the countries in the global North that are sending their ships and other forms of toxic waste to these really poor countries like Bangladesh.  

Ngofeen: Who are you and what do you do at Human Rights Watch? 

Julia: I'm Julia Bleckner. I'm a senior researcher on health and human rights. I focus primarily on environmental health.   So, the export of toxic substances and toxics like ships to the global South that harm people living there. In like 2011, I was living in Bangladesh, not working for Human Rights Watch. And had gone down to the shipbreaking yards just to see what it was like there. It's a wild thing to behold - it's like giant - these like giant ships that are basically shipwrecked onto the beach.    

Rizwana: People carrying the heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy metal sheets on their shoulder.  

Julia: I talked to Rizwana, years later, about where we would actually have some added value.  She really highlighted to me the value of documenting these abuses from an international angle. 

Ngofeen: What's the relationship between the ordinary person, let's say living in New York city or Los Angeles Brussels or Berlin or Tokyo and shipbreaking in Bangladesh.   Like, what is the connection point between those two things? 

Rizwana: An ordinary people in New York would wear a t-shirt that is made in Bangladesh and would care about how this shirt has been made, what chemical has gone into it, whether any form of forced labor or exploitation has got into it. The difference is, the same New Yorker does not care about when the same Bangladeshi laborer has to break their vessel, just to keep their territory free of hazardous material. The Western people only know that the vessels are carrying the T-shirts for them from Bangladesh. They don't know that when the vessels can't ply anymore, they are not bringing the T-shirts anymore. They rather dump there on the territories on the beaches of Bangladesh, just to destroy our environment and kill our people.  

So when they're importer, they're careful about what they're bringing to their country. When they're exporter, they're not careful about what they're dumping. You get so sick working there for two and a half months that you need to go to the doctor, get some medication. Sometimes you lose parts of your body. Sometimes you develop breathing difficulties. Sometimes you get problems with your vision because you use the torch without the glasses.  

So it's not employment at all to me. It’s clear exploitation 

Ngofeen: And so it's like a co it's like a, it's a couple month contract essentially, but not really a contract… 

Rizwana: It's bonded labor. 

Ngofeen: Say more about what you mean when you say that. 

Rizwana: It’s bonded labor because you are brought to a particular place, with some hope. When you come here, you are told that you will have to do this work. This is your working hour. Okay? There is no agreement given to you. Although the government has now come up with a minimum wage package, but nobody is monitoring as to who is paying that package.  

So your salary is dictated by them. Your working hour is dictated by them.  There is no agreement given to you. If you refuse to work, you are not allowed to come back. You can't carry your mobile to your workplace. You can't take a picture with your co-worker because they fear that that way the stories are getting leaked to the outer world. You know? So, you don't have any freedom. See, if you don't have any freedom and all of your job conditions are dictated by a middleman, what else is it if not bonded labor?  

Host: The thing about shipbreaking isn't just that it's hot and it’s long. It's that our lives in developed countries and in the West directly influence what’s happening in Bangladesh.  These ships that workers are breaking down, these are ships that come from the developed countries -- from France, from Germany, from Greece, from the United States, from China -- and this is where we're going to have to talk for a minute about science and history. 

Sampled audio: Attention! If you or a loved one was diagnosed with mesothelioma, you may be entitled to financial compensation.  

Host: So you remember these commercials, right? I remember growing up with them on TV.  

Sampled audio: Mesothelioma is a rare cancer linked to asbestos exposure.  

Host: I'm a word nerd and the etymology of the word asbestos to me is fascinating.  ‘Sbestos’ is Greek, meaning quenchable and ‘A’ is not. So, unquenchable, not quenchable. And asbestos is a rock, it’s a fibrous rock. It’s thought to get its name from the fact that if you threw it in a fire, it wouldn’t get marred or stained, like corroded.   Inextinguishable.   The minerals were heat and fire resistant, and they were really strong.   They could be woven together or embedded into different products, where their heat resistant and strength qualities are pretty useful. Fire resistant clothing, brake pads, gaskets, pizza ovens. And I’m sure you’ve heard asbestos can make you sick. But do you know how? 

So, say you’re a shipbreaker in Bangladesh. One that’s met with Rizwana. Asbestos cloth was used in building ships for years, especially around world war II. One of the things it was used for was to wrap hot pipes so they wouldn't burn ship personnel. Right? So pipes get very hot. You wrap the ship pipe in asbestos.   You won't get burned. Now, you’re taking about that ship in Bangladesh and you breath in asbestos fibers. For some people nothing happens. But for others, the asbestos fibers can basically puncture the membrane of a cell. Within one day, they move to the area where the chromosomes are. And that fiber can then physically come in contact with your DNA and then interfere with the normal process of replication and cell division. And when that happens, that means that your new cells that have multiplied can have a missing chromosome or an extra chromosome or some other form of a mutation and that mutation can lead to cancer of the lining of the lungs. That is mesothelioma.  

But here’s the kicker, it can be 20 to 40 years between when the asbestos contact comes in contact with your cells and when the illness manifests. 

Sampled audio: Exposure to asbestos in the navy, shipyards, mills, heating….   

Host:  Mesothelioma is only one issue that can come from this. You can get asbestosis, you can get other things, and the list of symptoms that can result are like the side effects in a pharmaceutical ad. Shortness of breath, persistent dry cough, chest tightness, chest pain, a dry crackling sound in the lungs while breathing and wider and rounder than normal fingertips and toes.  

That whole list of symptoms I just gave you, that’s what you find in shipbreaking workers in Bangladesh. 

[Montage of Bangladeshi workers using the word “asbestos”] 

Julia: Most of the ships being broken down in Bangladesh are about 20 or so years old. So they all are filled with asbestos and, without a face mask, with bare hands, - people are walking over sand that's, like, full of chunks of metal, completely barefoot. A number, yeah, of workers described inhaling toxic fumes and breathing in burning asbestos. but, like, just using, like, their t-shirt to cover their mouths. There’s that but then also just so many heavy metals and PCBs in ships. The paint is really toxic. If it's being broken down right on the sand, it's going into the ecosystem. But also fishermen who live nearby described having to sail further and further out into the ocean over the years because they just couldn't get any fish anymore because they - they were all dying anywhere near the ships and also because the ships were cutting through their fishing nets. 

I spoke to one worker who had previously been a fisherman and then was not getting any fish. And he was like, well, I'm not getting any fish because of all these ships. I may as well go work on the ships. Yeah, and then there's also been like tons of studies or not tons, but a lot of studies, including by the Bangladesh government, looking at the level of heavy metals in fruits and vegetables that are grown nearby.   In some cases it's just like so far beyond the levels that are safe to consume that yeah, people are - end up growing food that then is full of heavy metals. And like this, the food is also toxic.    

Host: And just when you think it can't get any worse it does.   Like it literally piles up - the ship's scrap metal itself piles up. 

Rizwana: People carrying the heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy metal on their shoulder.  

Julia: There's no toxic waste management facility to bring it to at the end. So it ends up actually just being sold in the market.   A couple of workers described as asbestos villages, areas where they've just used asbestos for making furniture or, like asbestos stoves where they make a stove, like out of basically cinder block and asbestos that then people are using to like cook inside of their homes. Everybody who's living in and near the areas also ends up being exposed.   There's no downstream management of waste, which is exactly what, you know, the Basel convention is supposed to protect against. 

Host: The Basel Convention is the last part of this story - the sort of legal framework around all of this. Like, how is any of this even possible? 

So there was a convention that was put together passed in 1989 called the Basel Convention that was then amended with a thing called the Basel Ban Amendment in 1995.  

Julia: It's like, it was a group of like global South countries coming together and being like stop sending all of your toxic waste to our, like to our lands. 

Rizwana: When the Basel Convention came into effect, the Western countries and the waste generator of the Western countries knew that if they have to deal with their waste in their territory, it will cost them a lot. So they started bypassing the Basel Convention, created a middle group who would do all the paperwork for them, change the ownership flag of the vessel, so that it no longer is a US, Japanese or European vessel. It rather takes the flag of Tuvalu, or Trinidad Tobago or Panama. And then it can sail off from the European, American, Japanese territory as a vessel belonging to a small island country where paperwork is pretty easy. They used to first send it to the Southeast Asian countries, but when Southeast Asian countries like Taiwan, South Korea, Bangkok, they said, ‘No, it's too harmful for our people and for our environment. We won't, we won't take it’, then the middle people started sending the vessels to Bangladesh.  

And they found Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan as suitable for shipwrecking. And they also got the nodding from the Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan administration.   But you know, classic example of Western hypocrisy - they want to keep their backyards clean at the cost of messing up our backyards. 

Host: All of this ultimately ties into the idea of greenwashing. The Hong Kong convention is this convention that’s supposed to come into force next year in 2025.   It sort of purports to set a new standard for ship recycling.   But in reality, many shipping companies have advocated for this law in part because the requirements are really really low.  So, no requirement that the receiving country have sustainable waste management practices, and no ban on dismantling ships directly on the beach where the chemicals can seep into the ground, rather than doing it on a platform, say with cranes and safety equipment.    

Given that, I was curious to see for Rizwana how all of this strikes her, as someone who's from the place that's being affected and who has been trying for decades to improve things. 

Rizwana: I work with the laborers. My God, I've been working in this sector for 21, 22 years.  I do have sleep disturbance. There are points when I lose my temperament, uh, to an extent that you won't call me a professional person anymore.   But then, but then I talk to myself and my colleagues all understand that I'm stressed because of this, because I take the, try to take, I can't, I should not be saying that, but I try to take the pain of every disabled shipwrecking worker to my heart. I try to solve their problems. I take, try to take them to doctors. I try to raise funds for them. I take their cases to the court. 

But I am hopeful because I - you know, there are many people dying, but I don't know about you, Ngofeen, but I, I firmly believe that there is something called natural justice, and there is no way that these people can escape natural justice. And we have exposed them. Nobody respects the shipwreckers as ethical business people, you know. 

So yes, it has taken some toll. But then it's okay. I mean, I'm still surviving, uh, in high spirit with hopes for changes.   

** HRW AD **

Host: When Rizwana started this work two decades ago, very few people in her community knew about shipbreaking. On top of the individual lives she’s changed, the stories HRW has told, Rizwana’s advocacy has been successful in one really important way: it’s made the industry infamous. 

Every part of the shipping process for centuries, has been central to tragedies.  From ship building, and the latent poison of asbestos, tearing up your lungs, to the shipping itself.  Centuries before, ships laden with bodies, crossing the Atlantic Ocean to become laborers in the U.S. And then at the end of ships lives, now in our modern times, those, those asbestos-built ships torn up on coasts where brown people work in, eat food off of asbestos made ovens.   

What looks like a story about Bangladesh is only the narrowest aperture.   When you widen it, countries like France, Germany, other European countries, the U.S.  all come into focus.   The idea of us living separate crises to me, more and more, seems like a complete illusion. The minutiae of our lives in the West, down to our waste management practices can affect the cellular makeup of people in Bangladesh when we throw our ships away. 

I keep thinking about the origin of that word asbestos. Inextinguishable. Unquenchable. I wish there was some way to extinguish those fibers.   

Human Rights Watch’s report on shipbreaking is called ‘Trading Lives for Profit: How the Shipping Industry Circumvents Regulations to Scrap Toxic Ships on Bangladesh’s Beaches’.  

The report concludes that shipping companies should invest in building stable platform facilities at a standard that fully protects workers’ rights and handles waste disposal. And the EU should revise its rules to close loopholes. 

You can read the report on hrw.org. 

Host: OK, so that was the episode we first came out with in May of 2024. Since then, there has been an honest to God uprising overthrowing the government in Bangladesh, that students have led. Right now there's a transitional government in place. And Rizwana - our friend Rizwana -  is part of it...

Julia: Yeah, I mean, when we recorded the interview with Rizwana, she was under surveillance and scrutiny by the ruling party. She operated at her own risk to her own life. And now she's literally leading the environmental work in the government. Basically the minister of environment.

Host: So Rizwana, who has done more than any other person to bring attention to the depredations of the shipbreaking industry, is now basically in charge. What does that mean?

Julia: Yeah, so Rizwana has a massive job ahead of her and not very much time to carry it out.

So just a couple days ago, the the chief advisor, Muhammad Yunus announced that elections would happen in December. So she has basically less than a year to try to clean up this industry, um, and all of her other environmental work beyond the shipbreaking sector. 

Host: Obviously things don't change overnight, and Julia says the status quo remains largely in place. So workers are still suffering. But now at least there is someone in the government who is responsive to the needs of the shipbreaking workers...

Julia: so, for example, in September, just one month after the interim government came into power, there was a massive explosion in a shipbreaking yard.

At least seven workers were killed. This ship should never have been in Bangladesh in the first place. And it should never have made it onto a Bangladesh shore with, with gas that can explode inside of it. And whereas previously really nothing would have happened, Rizwana made sure that all of those workers made it to Dhaka for, you know, emergency health care,that they receive the carethat they needed, and also that they are receiving, their families are receiving compensation.

She also immediately shut down that yard and ordered an investigation into why that ship was able even to make it onto the shore. So multiply this times you know, all of the other shipbreaking yards in Bangladesh. Now they have like Rizwana's scrutiny and commitment to accountability that was never there before.

Host: OK! So some positive change is happening in Bangladesh! And you guys thought we never bring you good news stories. Obviously, there's a long way to go, and who knows what those elections in December will bring. But compared to a year ago, things are looking a bit brighter for the human rights of Bangladesh’s shipbreaking workers.

OK, we’re making progress towards our goal of one billion listeners! Thank you for spreading the word! But keep doing it! Subscribe to the podcast, spread the word on social media, and in real life. It really helps.

You’ve been listening to Rights and Wrongs, from Human Rights Watch. This episode was produced by me and Curtis Fox. Our associate producer is Sophie Soloway. Thanks also to Ifé Fatunase, Stacy Sullivan, and Anthony Gale. Music this episode is by me.

We’re taking a short break and we’ll be back on April 21st with a new episode. I’m Ngofeen Mputubwele. Talk to you soon.

OPENING 

Host: There’s a lot going on in the world right now. When politics is too much, people usually retreat somewhere for relief. For me, it’s usually to friends and community and dance class. 

NBC Sports: audio from Newcastle match.

Host: From what I hear, it’s great to just lose yourself in a game. Now, for most people on the planet, that game, that sport, it’s probably soccer, or football.. 

Archival/BBC: The 2034 World Cup will be in Saudi Arabia.

Host: Wah wah. No shade to Saudi Arabia, but it’s not going to get you away from politics.

Archival/Al Jazeera English: Images played out relentlessly worldwide as Saudi Arabia denied Jamal Khashoggi had been killed. 

Host: I’m thinking of the 2018 murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. American intelligence concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered it….

Deutsche Welle: Human Rights watch has accused Saudi Arabian border guards of killing hundreds of Ethiopians since March, 2022. [fade under]

Host:  There’s the mass killing of migrants along the Saudi Yemen border, which we covered in an earlier episode of this podcast. 

Clip: I saw people killed in a way I have never imagined.

Host: Then there’s the executions, the suppression of free speech…

Archival/Shia Waves English: The Saudi court has sentenced a teacher to 20 years in prison for peaceful social media activities …

Host: ….not to mention the treatment of women…

HRW/Lena: And then we saw another wave of arrests that was targetting anyone who was supportive of women’s rights activists..

Host: To be be very clear, no government has a perfect human rights record. By any metric Saudi Arabia has an abysmal human rights record. 

Archival/BBC: There was only one bid. FIFA had already called it a very strong all-around proposition.

Host: So why would FIFA grant Saudi Arabia the right to host  the World Cup, especially since it has human rights commitments written into its charter? And why would Saudi Arabia agree to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to host it? Well, there’s a name for what’s going on here. It’s called “sportswashing.”

INTRO

Host: This is Rights & Wrongs, a podcast from Human Rights Watch. I'm Ngofen Mputubwele. I am a writer, a lawyer, and a radio producer. Human Rights Watch asked me to look at human rights hotspots around the world through the eyes and ears of people on the front lines of history. 

This week, “sportswashing.” What is it? Who’s doing it? What does it mean for human rights? And what can people do about it?

To get us started, I spoke with one of the world’s experts on sportswashing, who just happens to work at Human Rights Watch…

Minky Worden: I'm Minky Worden and I oversee Human Rights Watch's work on sport and human rights worldwide.

Host: Minky didn’t coin the term sportswashing… she says it first appeared in the Economist magazine. But she and her colleagues at Human Rights Watch have been doing their best to popularize the term. 

Minky:  we think it's a very effective term because sports is something that has a public appeal. It's almost a term that doesn't need a definition.

Host: Almost, but not quite. I mean, I get  that it plays off of “greenwashing,” which in turn plays off of “whitewashing.” But …

Ngofeen: Like what, what does it mean?  

Minky: Sportswashing is a new term for a really old practice. And that practice is taking something that people love, popular sports, and then using those events that you're hosting to cover up or to whitewash, uh, very serious human rights abuses in a country. And it is an old practice…

[Archival: Music from Leni Riefenstahl’s 1938 film “Olympia.”]

Host:  …we’re not talking Ancient-Greece–Mount-Olympus-old. We’re talking within a very old person’s lifetime, like… 1936.

Minky:  So a short history of modern day sportswashing begins with the Nazi Olympics. That was when Adolf Hitler used the 1936 Olympics and invited people from around the world to see the majesty of Nazi Germany.

[Archival: more from “Olympia”]

 So the Nazi games were a very good example of Nazi Germany using sport to cover up its aggression against neighboring countries and its repression of people at home.

[Archival: more from “Olympia”]

Minky: He even had his own personal what we would know now is a pr director Leni Riefenstahl, who did a film about the majesty of Nazi Germany through the lens of the Olympics, and the torch relay through countries that Adolf Hitler intended to roll tanks through. 

Host: So the term may be new, but once you have the idea of sportswashing in your head, you start to see examples of it throughout the 20th century. 

Archival/1664 cup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMtkn35p3pA

Host: In 1964 soccer’s European Nations’ Cup was held in Spain when the fascist Francisco Franco was dictator.

Archival/Rumble in the Jungle/HBO: And there you hear the sound of Ali bumbayeh…, 

Host: “Ali Bummayeh.” That means, Ali, kill’em.

Archival/Rumble in the Jungle/HBO: This is the most joyous scene…

In 1974 The Rumble in the Jungle, heavyweight title match between Mohammed Ali and George Foreman, took plaze in Zaire, now known as the DRC, during the dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko.

[Olympic music]

Host: But the biggest sporting event in the 20th Century has always been the Olympics, which, after a pause in 1940 and 1944…

[newsreel: air raid sounds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP5-lgFaCBg]

…you know… WWII…

Newsreel con’t: explosion

…restarted in 1948, just as the Cold War was heating up…

Minky: We go through the Cold War, where the political divide, and the repression in the Soviet Union and Soviet bloc countries was  competing against the democracies in the West. And you had a period of boycott.

Archival/ NBC News: Vice president Jimmy Carter issued an ultimatum. Carter: And I have notified the Olympic committee

Host: The boycotts. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in late 1979, President Jimmy Carter didn’t want to let the Soviets use the Olympics to distract the world from their aggression.

Archival/NBC news: and the Moscow games proceeded with the smallest turnout of any Olympics in decades. 

Host: In other words, Carter tried to prevent the Soviet Union from sportswashing, although the term hadn’t been invented yet. 

ABC Sports/Jim McCay: Now all the world around Los Angeles will know it has begun here….

Host: In revenge, Eastern Bloc countries boycotted the 1984 games, the next ones, in Los Angeles.  

ABC/Peter Jennings: …rich blue California sky providing a backdrop and even the blimps say “Welcome.”

Host: Which again shows you, sport is incredibly political. The 1988 Olympics, the next ones after that, took place in Montreal, with Eastern Bloc countries fully participating. The Soviet Union would fall apart in 1991, but another geopolitical rival of the U.S. was rapidly rising: China had started its astonishing economic expansion, but there was one event that would sully China’s international reputation for years to come…

BBC: After hours of shooting and facing a line of troops, the crowd is still here. They’re shouting, stop the killing…

Minky: The Tiananmen Square Massacre happened in 1989. And that really gave the Chinese government a black eye. They rolled tanks against students and workers with terrible casualties on… visible to the world on television. 

BBC/con’t: Two others were killed yards away. Two more people  lay wounded on the ground near me…

Minky: After that, the then leader, Deng Xiaoping, told his entire hierarchy, we will host the Olympics as a way of reintegrating with the world and putting forward a better, cleaner, more humane face. So China sought to host the Olympics first in the year 2000. They lost because of the Tiananmen Square massacre. It was too soon after the bloodshed, but in 2008, they won the right to host. 

Archival/Olympic Channel: 2008 Olympics opening ceremony drumming 

Minky: It wasn't just a Summer Olympics. It was billed as “China's coming out party.”

[music or more newsreel, fading out]

 Minky: So sportswashing almost always serves two purposes. The first is actually a domestic purpose. So many of these repressive countries, they don't have regular elections. This is a way actually to use a sports event to get your people interested and engaged in something that is a very nationalistic thing, hosting.

The second area is it often leads to catastrophic and large human rights abuses. 

Host:  …for the Beijing Olympics, Minky says, the Chinese government forced the evictions of as many as 10,000 people to make way for new stadiums. Human Rights Watch documented] abuses of migrant labor, and increasing repression of civil society, LGBTQ people, women, activists and journalists.   

Minky: So Deng Xiaoping back in 1993, when he set out to win the Olympics, actually set in play, set in motion, a playbook that dictators and autocrats are using today.

Archival/Olympic Channel: Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome the athletes of the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games 

Host: Russia deployed that playbook when they hosted the 2014 Winter Olympics…

 Minky: The state was so invested that they launched a massive state sponsored doping program to rake in the medals. 

Archival/FIFA: Here is the planet’s ultimate game….

Minky: And then in 2018 they were hosting the World Cup across Russia. But they use d forced labor, they cracked down on journalists and LGBTQ people in the process. 

Archival: And France take the lead in the World Cup final!

Minky:  The Russia World Cup was a human rights catastrophe. The research showed that North Korean slave laborers were building the St. Petersburg stadium. The Human Rights Watch researcher on labor abuses was arrested trying to report on migrant labor abuses. A lot of countries took a look at this and said, ‘Hey, let's, let's pull a card out of the playbook of China and Russia, if they can rehabilitate their human rights reputation without having to actually do reforms, maybe we can do the same.’

 Ngofeen: Hm. In the last couple of decades, we see a lot of Gulf states have taken a particular interest in, in soccer, in tennis, in golf. I want to talk about soccer for a minute. Why and when did, uh, soccer become an interest to countries like Saudi Ar abia and Qatar and the UAE? Like why soccer and when?  

Minky: I really think that dates back to the extremely corrupt awarding of the World Cups for 2018 to Russia, and the awarding in the same crooked vote to Qatar. The world cup in Qatar in 2022 was under preparation for more than a decade. It was awarded in December, 2010,  and the infrastructure was simply not there. The World Cup in Qatar cost $220 billion.

It was building eight new stadiums in the desert where they previously didn't exist. The human cost was also high. 

Host: Between 2010 and 2022, thousands of migrant workers lost their lives building stadiums and other buildings for the World Cup. Neither the Qatari government or FIFA ever investigated or explained these deaths… nor did they compensate the workers’ families. 

Fox Sports: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mxkg3qLIPC8

Host: Many viewed the 2022 World Cupa as a huge success. FIFA made billions of dollars.

Minky: We're talking about an event watched by five billion people worldwide. So it's the most watched and the most expensive sporting event in the world. And that's why countries are vying to host it.

Host: Even before FIFA awarded the 2034 World Cup to Saudi, Saudi Arabia was investing billions of dollars in sport. Through its Public Investment Fund, or PIF, the Saudi government created LIV Golf, in competition with the PGA. Saudi Arabia has hosted  heavyweight boxing title fights, and staged the world’s richest horse race. There’s Formula 1 racing events, even a longterm deal with World Wrestling Entertainment, not to mention international tennis tournaments. 

Minky: So Saudi Arabia will be the host of the FIFA World Cup in 2034. Now that's 10 years away from now, but we already have sight of their bid documents. 

Host: According to those documents,  Saudi Arabia is planning to build new stadiums... 

Minky: eleven stadiums

Host: Eleven huge stadiums that seat 60 to 100 thousand people. 

Minky: One of those stadiums will be built in a place called Neom. Neom doesn't exist. 

Host: Well it did… I mean, it wasn’t called Neom, but people lived in the area. And the Saudi government displaced that historical community…

Minky: They're building a stadium in conditions of deadly heat with a migrant labor system called the Kafala system where passports are taken and workers aren't free to leave their jobs and where there's a chronic problem of wage theft and unsafe conditions.  And that is a catastrophic risk on the horizon that is coming to the world because of Saudi Arabia's formal sportswashing policy, which is tied to what they call Vision 2030.

And that is Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's signature program, both to create jobs for Saudi citizens for the young people in Saudi Arabia, but then also to create a place for Saudi Arabia on the world stage.

Host: When we come back, what does sportswashing mean for athletes… and for fans?

[HRW ad: Sam Dubberly]

NBC Sports: Newastle United match sounds

Host: Newcastle is a city in the northeast of England. It has one soccer club, Newcastle United. For the locals it’s a very big deal…

Hird:  it's got massive support. And the thing about it is that it's part of the culture. It's a very working class city. The people from the  area are called Geordies. So  it plays a big part in a central part of our, uh, Geordie culture.

Host: John Hird is a Geordie, and a lifelong Newcastle United fan. That’s why I wanted to talk to him…

Ngofeen:  In October of 2021, Saudi Arabia's public investment fund, they took an 80 percent share in the club. And I'm curious what, what was your reaction to that?

Hird: Well my initial reaction is that I was obviously totally against it. On the day the takeover happened, there was thousands of people in the street. I mean, you know, it's amazing. So it was in the middle of the week and there was surrounding the stadium, people dancing, drinking, you know, singing.  But I think the majority were there because Ashley was gone, he’d sold the club.

Archival/Daily Mail: Sounds of celebration/protest

Host: John Ashley, the former owner, was and is a British billionaire. Ashley was not well loved in Newcastle, to put it mildly. Under his watch the club had a lousy record. So fans celebrated his departure…

Hird:  It was a terrible, you know, billionaire exploitative owner of the football club. Uh, it doesn't mean it's better to have the Saudi state in control of your football club. In my opinion, out the frying pan, you know, into the fire. 

Host: John Hird is one of the founders of Newcastle United Fans Against Sportswashing, which started organizing fans to protest against Saudi human rights abuses. 

 Hird: Salma al-Shehab… 

Host: They named names…

Hird: Nourah al Qahtani…

Host: …two Saudi women who received long sentences for social media posts critical of the Saudi government…. 

Hird:  When we raised those names and, and we had photos of them, we had placards with their names on, we got abuse on social media. And some fans started to echo what the Saudi trolls and bots were doing and say, ‘Oh, they're all terrorists’. That was the answer to everything. ‘Anyone in prison by the Saudi state is a terrorist’.

So we said, look, we're not going to accept this. We're not going to accept that the Saudi state can manipulate public opinion in the Northeast. Cause that's what they were doing. 

Host: John Hird is an English teacher. His father was a union man, and John himself was a socialist as a young man in the 1980s when Margaret Thatcher was in power. So maybe that’s where he comes by his sportswashing activism. 

Hird:  Basically, you know, if you're a human being and you've got some values then you support human rights, you know?  Just because our team which we love You know, a club is owed by the Saudi state doesn't mean that we're going to ignore, uh, human rights, you know? So that’s the motivation.

Ngofeen:  And so I know that some fans like gave up their season tickets and there were various, like what, basically, what are the kinds of reactions that you saw as this sort of settled in as being the new reality?

Hird: If you ask what the fans thought, I'd say it's in three parts. Vast majority in the middle, good people. If you sit down with them and talk to them and say, look, we support human rights, we do. Most people do. But there's that small minority who have been basically sports washed. 

****

 Minky: We work with a lot of fans groups around the world, and they all say, fans don't want to sit in a stadium that workers died to build.

Host: Once again, Human Rights Watch’s Minky Worden….

Minky: They don't want to sit in a place where if they wear a rainbow shirt in solidarity with LGBT rights, where they're tackled to the ground and beaten up. That happened in Qatar for, for fans who came from outside just to watch the World Cup.

Host: What about the people that fans come to watch? What about the athletes? How do they figure into sportswashing? While some very famous athletes are making a lot of money in Saudi Arabia, Minky says that most athletes have similar concerns as fans…

Minky:  Soccer players, football players, men, women, no one wants to play in a stadium that workers died to build. And players have told Human Rights Watch this.

Host: Athletic federations like FIFA and the Women’s Tennis Association and Formula One have human rights requirements built into their charters, often crafted under pressure from Human Rights Watch and colleague organizations. And yet, Minky says these federations often don’t want their athletes to rock the boat...

Minky:  The federations are increasingly muzzling these athletes. You know, along with boxing, football, tennis, and golf going to Saudi Arabia, the Formula One race has gone to Saudi Arabia.

Top driver, Lewis Hamilton wore, for the race, a rainbow helmet. He didn't say anything, and he didn't need to. He was telling the world about his values. But ever since then,  it's been documented that players are having to sign so-called non-disparagement clauses. And that means that even if they feel strongly about something, they're not allowed to speak. That’s completely unacceptable.. 

Host: Yet there are signs of athletes pushing back.

Host: Back in October, after FIFA announced that the giant state-owned Saudi Oil company Aramco would be a major partner, more than a hundred female soccer players wrote a letter to FIFA in protest. Here’s a bit of that letter…

Reader: The Saudi authorities trample not only on the rights of women, but on the freedom of all other citizens too. We deserve so much better from our governing body than its allyship with this nightmare sponsor.

Minky: So it's almost unthinkable that FIFA would move forward to award the World Cup in a place that has credible allegations of things  amounting to modern day slavery.

Host: So what can people do about it, and about sportswashing more generally? Well, if you're a fan and your team or your favorite player is part of a sportswashing scheme, says Minky, you’ve got some leverage…

Minky: So  if you think about the ecosystem of sports, it's a big business, it's a multi trillion dollar business. And guess what the product is. You. You are the product, your love for tennis, boxing, Formula One, football, American or European football, that is what these companies are selling. So there are absolutely pressure points. Your views matter. The pressure points are on the federations, but it's also on sponsors. So remember what underwrites these multibillion dollar events? It's Coca Cola, Adidas, Visa, McDonald's, Budweiser. What fans can do is tell these companies that you care about human rights, you care about where these events are staged, and you don't want to sit in a stadium that workers died to build, and you don't want to participate in a sport where, that is not open and inclusive and welcoming of the players that make it possible.

Host: Meanwhile, in Newcastle, fans like John Hird have not let up in their efforts to keep their club and its fans from being sportswashed…

Ngofeen:  John, one big question here. Do you still go to games?

Hird: Well, I think I would be a little bit of a hypocrite if I went to games, but we, we've discussed it and we don't call for a boycott.

We distributed, uh, posters of Selma Alva to Newcastle fans and we said, hold them up in the stadium. All we say to Newcastle fans is if you go, and we're not saying boycott, but if you go,  at punctual times, do a protest. The Saudi human rights advocates have said to  us they have a massive effect.So we've tried to do that. But I personally wouldn't go at the moment. No, but I watch them. I watch it on the TV. Yeah. 

OUTRO:

Host: John Hird is one of the founders of Newcastle United Fans Against Sportswashing. Minky Worden oversees Human Rights Watch's work on sport and human rights worldwide.

The archival clips in this episode were from NBC Sports, The BBC, Al Jazeera, Deutsche Welle, ABC News In-Depth, Shia Waves English, ABC News, Leni Riefenstahl’s film Olympia, HBO, NBC News, the Olympic Channel, FIFA, Fox Sports,The Daily Mail, and Business Loop.

You’ve been listening to Rights and Wrongs, from Human Rights Watch. This episode was produced by me and Curtis Fox. Our associate producer is Sophie Soloway. Thanks also to Ifé Fatunase, Stacy Sullivan, and Anthony Gale. 

I’m Ngofeen Mputubwele. Talk to you again in two weeks. 

ICC No more?

Ngofeen: Can you just list for me the four crimes? 

Richard: Genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression. 

Host: When the most ghastly human rights crimes happen around the world, there’s one body that we hear about a lot. The International Criminal Court.   

Archival/NPR: There have been tens of thousands of Israeli military strikes in the Gaza war. One this October stands out. Israel hit a five-story building housing an extended family of well over a hundred people.  .  .

Archival/ABC: The Russian President Vladimir Putin is now a wanted man. After the International Criminal Court formally issued a warrant for his arrest over the war in Ukraine.

Archival/NPR: After the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant …

Archival/Al Jazeera: The chamber pronounces the following individual’s sentences… 

Archival/Al Jazeera: Judges at the international criminal court sentenced Al Hassan to 10 years in prison for war crimes. Not enough, says those who have survived his form of justice in Timbuktu.

Host: One of the benefits of being close to Human Rights Watch is that I can talk to people who know about the institution not just theoretically, but in practice. Which is how I met Richard Dicker.

Richard: Well, I'm an old guy.  Uh,

Host: The founder of the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch. Richard has seen things. 

Richard:uh, I dropped out of college, uh, and then spent, uh, more than ten years as a labor and community organizer in, inner city Detroit, Michigan….

(audio fades down) 

Host: Do not let his mild manner fool you. With every pause, Richard chooses his words with precision. Those words have taken him to sit and chat with a President, to the carpeted offices of U.S. Senators and Secretaries of Defense, and the halls of the United Nations. 

And he is the one in this episode who’s going to help us understand the ICC, and the world’s most serious human rights crimes. Those four crimes we started with.

Richard: Each one of those are defined in excruciating detail. Each one of them are composed of various elements that the prosecutor has got to prove. For example, crimes against humanity, uh, murder on a widespread or systematic basis carried out against a civilian population as a result of a state or organization policy.   You've got the crime against humanity of murder. And murder has its own particular elements. You've got the crime against humanity of torture and torture has its particular elements that the prosecutor must successfully prove, to even get an arrest warrant issued, let alone a conviction at trial.

Host: Here now, in early 2025, a very important thing is happening in the U.S. which affects the ICC. 

ARCHIVAL/Reuters: The bill is passed .  .  .   The US house of representatives has voted to sanction the International Criminal Court.  .  . America is passing this law because a kangaroo court is seeking to arrest the Prime Minister of our great ally … what the ICC is doing with their arrest warrants is legitimizing the false accusations of Israeli war crimes …

Host: The U.S. Congress is setting up a system that would allow the US to freeze assets and place travel bans on ICC officials. 

Ngofeen: Can you help me understand ….

Richard: This train is going off the rails come January 20th, because the tracks are going to collapse. 

Host: It’s not just the US. Some countries and political figures around the world have laid accusations at its feet. For instance, ‘A court in Europe that prosecutes people in Africa - wow! That sounds pretty fair.’ Which, legitimate criticism. 

Countries have taken pretty particular actions in the last two years. Russia has issued arrest warrants for some of the ICC’s judges and prosecutors, and criminalized cooperation with the court, after the judges in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin for alleged crimes in Ukraine. Israel’s parliament just passed a law criminalizing cooperation with the ICC.

Archival/Reuters: The ICC said it noted the bill with concern. In a statement to Reuters the ICC said “The Court firmly condemns any and all actions intended to threaten the Court and its officials, undermine its judicial independence and its mandate, and deprive millions of victims of international atrocities across the world of justice and hope.” In November, ICC judges said there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and Gallant were criminally responsible for acts including murder, persecution, and starvation as a weapon of war. That’s part of what the court called a “widespread and systematic attack on the civilian population of Gaza.” Israel has rejected the jurisdiction of the Hague based court and denies war crimes in Gaza. The court also issued …

Host: There’s a pretty big conflict happening. That’s why we gotta try to understand the ICC, like how it came to be, why it’s so controversial, and why it affects everything that we’re all seeing in the news all the time, when it comes to the world’s most serious crimes. 

This is Rights & Wrongs, a podcast from Human Rights Watch. I'm Ngofeen Mputubwele. I am a writer, a lawyer, and a radio producer. Human Rights Watch asked me to look at the human rights hotspots around the world through the eyes and ears of the people on the front lines of history. 

On this episode: the ICC.

{INTRO MUSIC}

Host: The International Criminal Court is in the Netherlands, in a city called The Hague.

The ICC is not a court that investigates anything and everything. Obviously. First off, whose cases does it hear and preside over? The ICC does not cover disputes between countries. That’s the ICJ, the International Court of justice. That’s the court where South Africa sued Israel alleging genocide in Gaza. Both courts - ICC, ICJ - are in the Hague. So they often get confused.

But the ICC is not for disputes at all. It is a prosecutor filing criminal charges against criminal defendants.

Ok, so then WHAT kind of charges, what kinds of cases does the court cover? 

It’s those FOUR crimes. Crimes against humanity. Genocide. War Crimes. Aggression. All of which are very meticulously defined.

For instance, genocide means something very specific. Genocide is acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.

These are the legal definitions that the vast majority of countries in the world have agreed on in a treaty.

So, the ICC’s is actually pretty young. For the last twenty-odd years, the ICC has been working away at prosecuting these four crimes. Richard Dicker was there in the early to mid-90s.

Richard: These discussions would take place in these huge UN conference rooms, you know, with just gazillions of people, speaking sometimes in six different languages. And these were overwhelmingly lawyers, and the detail and terminology was, like, ancient Greek to me.

Ngofeen: Do you remember any of the words that would go by and you'd be like, what are they talking about?

Richard: Uh, Things like, uh, proprio moto, command responsibility, individual criminal liability. And the detail, and the precision of the back and forth discussion over, draft Article 81, Paragraph 6, small Roman numeral 3.   I, yeah, I had gone to law school, but this was a whole other universe, for me. 

Ngofeen:  What was the thing that caused the decision to like, okay, we should start drafting a treaty for the ICC?

Host: The answer to this, honestly, is some the gravest human rights violations imaginable in the 1990s. And there’s this moment in the interview where Richard is there in Rome as the treaty’s getting worked out and I tried to embody this question which I have which is, ‘Ok I understand this is an institution, but it wasn’t around that long, so before it existed, why would you have said this thing matters?’ And I wanted to understand better the answer to that question. 

Ngofeen: So, pretend that I am a colleague of yours. when you're in Rome.

Richard: OK.

Ngofeen: I don't get why this matters. Like, you seem really excited about this, but I don't, I don't quite get it. Like we have the UN, like why, Richard, why are you so, you seem like really into this. Why are you so fired up about it?’

Richard: Well, first, let's talk about very recent events, 

ARCHIVAL/PBS NewsHour: .  .  .   a 100 day killing spree that took one million lives. 

Richard: What occurred in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. I mean, the most serious crimes, that exist , committed against the Yugoslavia civilians on the basis of their nationality, ethnicity, religious belief, whole villages slaughtered, women kept as sex slaves, for the prevailing military force of the moment, ethnic cleansing, which was movement, by force of whole communities of Bosnian Muslims, out of their homes and, communities where they had lived for hundreds of years, 

I mean, these were ugly, ugly things that were being done. And the news media covered it. We didn't have cell phones back then for sure, but it was on the television news - the scenes of concentration camp like situations in 1992. I mean, my God, in Europe, no less.   And then followed almost immediately by genocide in Rwanda.

I would say this is important because even today these kinds of crimes are being committed against civilian populations, being slaughtered. There needs to be some permanent, standing, international court 

Okay? That's why I see this as, as being so important. horrors were unfolding in Sierra Leone. Uh, horrors of the similar type in East Timor a few years later, ethnic cleansing against Kosovar Albanians 

The victims of these crimes need to be honored, and determination of guilt or innocence needs to be made by a court of law. in the case of those accused of carrying out genocide, crimes against humanity, and more crimes.

Host: To respond to Rwanda, to respond to Yugoslavia, the UN creates a set temporary international tribunals. 

Richard: For the first time ever in 45 years an international criminal tribunal that would address the most serious international crimes, and I'm talking genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.

Host: By 45 years, Richard means this hadn’t happened since World War 2, since Nuremberg and Tokyo. And after creating these temporary international tribunals, criminal tribunals, then they’re like ‘Ok we can’t keep creating criminal tribunals all the time. We gotta create something permanent, something fixed.’

Richard: We need something with broader jurisdiction, broader authority, permanent not permanent. temporary as the two tribunals were. 

Ngofeen: Were you at, were you at any of the conferences? Like, were you at the conference?

Richard: I, I was, uh, at the conference in Rome, uh, uh, from before the, uh, first gavel banged down on the table to the very end. And I considered it really, the high point of my professional experience, and I was hardly alone in that feeling.

Archival/ICC: Countries worldwide created an international treaty in 1998. The countries ratifying the treaty started to grow and itt took effect in 2002, officially establishing the International Criminal Court, or ICC.

Host: The creation of the ICC was a very very big deal. 

Archival/ICC: The Court is unique in that it was created by a treaty, and not the United Nations, which it cooperates with, but remains independent from.

Ngofeen:Why was the idea of an ICC controversial? 

Richard: Well…

Host: Now this is where the history of the ICC connects to the present. The US Congress, Russia, debates over whether Netanyahu, as a wanted man, can visit Europe, etc. …  It connects in this way:

From the start, the ICC was controversial precisely because of the job it was being asked to do: This controversy isn't just a little logistical bump in the story I should skip. It is the story. The initial controversy sows the seeds of leaders like Donald Trump and other global leaders' skepticism of the institution. 

Richard: Roughly three camps.

Host: In a nutshell, there were three different positions. 

Host: Camp one: 

Richard: Interest and support from all those states that had recently transitioned from dictatorship to democracy and had dealt with some of these very same crimes in their national courts. For example, in Argentina, delegates were fully on board and enthusiastic. 

Host: Camp two:

Richard: There were mixed feelings, frankly, from some of the most powerful Western states. I include the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. Yeah, they were supportive of it, but they wanted to retain control over it. They wanted to be able to turn this new cord on and off as if it were a light switch.

Host: Camp three: 

Richard:  India, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, countries with repressive rule  did not warm up to the idea that there would be a permanent international criminal court that theoretically even could have authority over some of their officials for war crimes, crimes against humanity.  

Host: In fact, 120 countries signed. 21 abstentions, 7 nos. The United States signed but never ratified the ICC treaty. Why not?

Richard: That all has to do, I, I submit, with this deep, deep notion of American exceptionalism. Something to the tune of we are the greatest country in the world. and while there might be a need for an international criminal court, and in fact there is, we have to stand above it or apart from it. Because anytime there's a crisis anywhere in the world, the national authorities often ask for U.S. help in the form of U. S. troops in keeping the peace. So, while the International Criminal Court may be appropriate for Brazil or Belgium, the United States, hey, we don't need it. We're the greatest country in the world. We've got the best weapons. best judicial system in the world, and we deploy troops all over the world, making ourselves and those troops into a pol - easy political target. 

Host: And basically, Richard tells me, every administration has had its own approach to the court, but they’ve essentially agreed on a sort of distance or skepticism of the court to varying degrees. 

Richard: The U. S. Secretary of Defense at that point,William Cohen, former Senator of Maine, in early May 1998, Secretary Cohen said to me, unless you can give me an ironclad guarantee that no U.S. service member will ever appear before this court, I cannot recommend to the President that we, the United States Senate, should ratify whatever treaty comes out of the conference. That was how clear the U. S. demands were.

Host: You see a similar thing happening for instance in Israel…

ARCHIVAL/Al Jazeera: The Trump administration has gone further, calling the ICC corrupt, ineffective and biased …

Host: When we come back, what’s happening with the court now?

[HRW Ad: Juanita]

Ngofeen: Can you tell me who you are? What is your name? And what do you do at Human Rights Watch?

Liz: I'm Liz, Liz Evenson, and I'm the director of our international justice program.

Ngofeen: So now it's time to talk to someone to understand what is the status quo with the ICC getting challenged like right now? What is happening right now? And how does this compare to other times when the ICC has been challenged? 

Liz: So the US doesn't belong to the ICC, but over the life of the ICC, you know, it's had like ups and downs. Sometimes it's really supported the ICC, really actually even helped arrest two defendants, um, to make sure they ended up in the Hague, and sometimes it's gone on the offensive and really tried to prevent the court In the first instance from even being created, and then at different pain points, including today, we see efforts from U.S. elected officials to try to really undermine and impede and make it impossible for the for the court to do its job and the pain point for the US has always been the prospect that the ICC could prosecute Americans or that the ICC could prosecute. allies. And right now that really boils down to Israel.

As you said, there's an there's an arrest warrant for the for the prime minister of Israel. This isn't the first time. Unfortunately, the previous Trump administration also imposed sanctions against the ICC partly over Uh, the prospect of, of prosecutions of Israel and partly over the idea that the ICC prosecutor might go after Americans for torture in Afghanistan.

So what we're seeing now started last year already under, under the previous Congress. a move to put back in place, uh, sanctions that could be used against ICC officials, uh, who are involved in the investigation and prosecutions arising out of the, the court's investigation in Palestine.

They haven't happened yet. The house has voted. In favor of them, the Senate is expected to look at it, and it's possible that the President could also just act on his own to put these sanctions back in place. The idea there is to just, you know, put maximum pressure on the court to get it to back away.from, you know, doing what it's really been set up to dowhich is to make sure that there is a place for victims to turn when they're, you know, there's no hope of justice at home.

Ngofeen: I'm in New York. And so I'm talking from the perspective of an American, but it sounds like this idea of sanctioning the court or limiting the court's work is something that's beyond just the U.S.

Liz: Right. So the I. C. C. has one of the most difficult jobs, right? Like it was set up to make sure that no one was above the law. And so that means that there are a lot of people out there with a lot of power who might have something to fear from accountability. And so the court has seen different kinds of attacks. Russia has issued arrest warrants for I. C. C. Judges for the I. C. C. Prosecutor. That's in retaliation for the fact that the I. C. C. Also has an arrest warrant against the Russian president. We've seen other kind of threats to criminalize cooperation with the court. The U.S. sanctions are not alone in that, and  the ICC is always going to face these kinds of threats. But U. S. sanctions are particularly powerful because of, you know, the U. S. 's influence and weight in the world. They pose in some ways a unique risk to the court. Not just these Individuals who might get sanctioned, but because there will be a concern on the part of others to work with the court on the fear that they themselves could end up, you know, being sanctioned or, you know, find themselves a foul of the U.S. authority to enforce those sanctions. So that's why they have this sort of unique possibility to really affect the work in ways that, as much as the court has seen other threats and survived other threats that these stand out, uh, so significantly.

 Host: With all these challenges stacked up against the ICC, I think here’s the thing to remember: it’s not supposed to be the court that’s covering your minutia. It does your hit and run, or your break in. It  isn’t even supposed to be the main place where  cases of even genocide are heard. 

Richard: A court of last resort. Okay. Which meant, when these crimes happen in a country,

Ngofeen: Genocide.  

Richard: Genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, when those crimes take place, it really is, first and foremost, the responsibility of the state in place to investigate and prosecute those, deemed to be responsible, all right? Court of last resort. They don't just step in and start investigating and prosecuting. They only do that if the national authorities are unable or unwilling to do so.

Host: To Richard Dicker, this is hugely important.

Ngofeen: The ICC, if that were to cease to exist. What does the world lose?

Richard: The world loses the means of, making operational, making meaningful the phrase, ‘never again’. Uh, it loses the vehicle that the international community, two thirds of states around the world have created to hold in fair and impartial trials those accused of these most serious crimes, to account.  

So the means, the modality, the vehicle, goes away. 

And along with that, any notion that in the year 2025 or 2026 this community has values, and standards that slaughter of civilians and rape as a weapon of war would not be tolerated. It would be hard to make those assertions seriously and credibly with the ICC having been knocked off on account of big power politics, by the incoming administration.

Ngofeen: [00:00:00] Do you think that the efforts to sanction the court, do you think that those sanctions would actually stop the ICC from doing what it does?

Liz: I think it's a risk that has to be taken with the absolute utmost seriousness. But I think it's a risk that can be overcome. So if  the US does go ahead and impose these sanctions, and I certainly hope that that they won't.

I hope they will realize that what's at stake here is a really fundamental value of justice and equality. But if they do go ahead, the court has 125 countries that belong to it, you know, who have signed up to it. It's their court and they have a responsibility to protect the court. Um, in terms of making sure that it can continue to do business, that it has the ability to do that, um, and they can do that by speaking out against these sanctions.

They can do that by making clear that they will provide support that the U. S. might, might withdraw. Yeah, I think the risk is real, but   my hope and I think, you know, I think that this is ideally what we're going to see is that the 125 countries from every part of the world are going to come together and say, don't mess with our court.

Outro

Liz Evenson is the director of Human Rights Watch’s international justice program. Richard Dicker is the founder of that program, and Liz’s former boss.

The news clips in this episode were from NPR, ABC News, Al Jazeera, Reuters, PBS, and the ICC. 

You’ve been listening to Rights and Wrongs, from Human Rights Watch. This episode was produced by me and Curtis Fox. Our associate producer is Sophie Soloway. Thanks also to Ifé Fatunase, Stacy Sullivan, and Anthony Gale. 

I’m Ngofeen Mputubwele. Talk to you again in two weeks. 

Host: We’ve said goodbye to 2024, but for people concerned with human rights the question remains: what in the world just happened? 

Al Jazeera: Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have been battling each other since early 2023…

Host: The war in Sudan raged on, with outrageous systematic violations of human rights…

Al Jazeera: The Rapid Support Forces have targeted hospitals and displacement camps, and killed thousands of civilians according to the local health ministry.  .  . 

PBS Newshour: One of the attacks struck a hospital, in Gaza’s Djabalia Refugee Camp, where Palestinians officials say at least nine people were killed, including women and children…

Host: Israel’s attacks in Gaza intensified, killing tens of thousands of civilians. And Russia continued its assault on Ukraine and Ukrainian civilians…

ABC News: It was a sleepless night across Ukraine, Russia firing nearly 300 drones and missiles at Ukraine’s critical infrastructure overnight…

Host: And Russia continued its assault on Ukraine and Ukrainian civilians…

But then, as dire as these conflicts have been for the civilians affected, there were some surprises…

NPR: There’s never been a summer quite like this in Bangladesh. In a few short months the country’s future has transformed.

Host: In Bangladesh, a popular uprising of students led to the collapse of the government of the autocratic prime minister Sheik Hassina…

NPR: Hassina was forced to resign. She fled the country. Protesters overran her residence. [sounds of celebration]

Host: …and in Syria the regime of Bashar al-Assad…

ABC News Australia: [sounds of celebration] Jubilation and celebration in the capital.

Host: …came to a sudden end…

ABC News Australia: Fighters, alongside Damascus locals dance on top of tanks in the city’s main square.

Host: 2024 was also a year of elections.

CNN: [election music]

Host: The drift towards authoritarianism continued in many parts of the world… 

CNN: It is now official. CNN now projects that Donald Trump has been elected president, defeating Vice President Kamala Harris…. 

Host: So that’s just some of what happened in 2024. You can read a lot more in Human Rights Watch’s World Report 2025. Every year Human Rights Watch issues a review of human rights around the globe. It’s a report that governments around the world closely watch, and also journalists, who, like me, are looking for some kind of clarity, as to: What in the world just happened? 

This is Rights & Wrongs, a podcast from Human Rights Watch. I'm Ngofeen Mputubwele. I am a writer, a lawyer, and a radio producer. Human Rights Watch asked me to look at human rights hotspots around the world through the eyes and ears of the people on the front lines of history. 

This week on Rights and Wrongs, we’re asking not only what happened in 2024, but what does it MEAN? 

So the World Report is a LARGE document. Among other things, it summarizes the human rights situations in about a hundred countries. 

Yes, you could feed the report into an AI website and probably get a snappy, Cliffsnotes version of human rights around the globe. But I like talking to people. I understand things better when I talk to people. And I want to see in my mind’s eye at least some of what’s been happening, picture it, and to get a sense of where things are headed.

Our guide for this episode is an Australian lawyer and former social worker. Her mom is part-Sri Lankan, part Chinese, her dad is an academic from Pakistan. She herself grew up in Singapore, Indonesia, the U.S. and Australia. Early in her career she did refugee work in Australia and worked in humanitarian aid in Africa and Asia, then worked for many years as a researcher for Human Rights Watch in the Middle East and around the world. She held a senior position at Amnesty International before returning to Human Rights Watch, where she is now the executive director.  

Her name is Tirana Hassan, and I talked to her a few days before the World Report was scheduled to come out in Human Rights Watch’s headquarters in the Empire State Building.  

First thing I wanted to know: of all the human rights abuses and conflicts that they detail in the report, which ones stand out for her? 

 Tirana: Sudan is number one. We have seen a protracted conflict now in Sudan over many years. And in 2024, the situation degenerated significantly, not just in terms of the amount of civilians who are dying, but also it's become the world's largest humanitarian crisis with famine now being declared in Sudan. 

We are seeing devastating images coming out of Gaza.  The war in Gaza continues on. There has not been any movement and we continue to see governments like the United States government give weapons to the Israeli defense force to continue the war crimes that Human Rights Watch documented throughout 2024. 

Another conflict, which is just not getting enough attention, but continues to rage on is the conflict in Myanmar.  This is a conflict which has been raging now for years after the military took over, in essentially a coup, and there is a civilian resistance movement which has been building, but the conflict has spread throughout the country and has really not gotten the level of international attention or action. 

And then of course, there's Ukraine.

Ngofeen: Let's go to Sudan for a minute. You spent time in Sudan, and I wonder when you think of Sudan, when you're hearing all the news about Sudan, what kind of images are going through your mind, particularly as someone who's been there?

Tirana: Yeah. When I see the images that are coming out, um, it takes me back to my time as an aid worker back in Darfur during the conflict at its most active period.

And it's these images of the, what is now known as the Rapid Support Forces, uh, back when I was in Darfur, they were the Janjaweed and it's these in their camouflage uniforms, standing around groups of terrified civilians, humiliating them, using racial slurs, which indicates that they were targeting them because of their ethnicity.

I see the pictures of these houses that people have worked so hard to build, put the tin on the roofs, burning, because that was actually part of the scorched earth policy from before, which we see repeating again, where once the Rapid Support Forces went into these towns, villages, they would target the civilian population. I remember that very vividly and hearing those stories and treating those survivors in our health facilities.  

But then they would loot.   And you see, we can see these in images, which are readily available on social media, where you see trucks leaving houses full of people's belongings.  And the other one that sticks with me that I've seen too many times, and that really could be an image from back then, is these flows of people. women carrying their children, children carrying babies, and people just walking in this line for what they hope will - a line with a large number of people that they hope will keep them safe from another attack.

Um, and unfortunately from our research in 2024, in Darfur in particular, we saw that staying in large numbers didn't keep them safe. Um, and when our researchers were in Chad interviewing those people who left, they described what it was like to - and that fear and that's the other thing that brings back a really vivid memory. It's not visual, but there's something you feel when somebody is telling you what it is like to be targeted when you - 

Ngofeen: How would you describe that?

Tirana: It's chilling. They tell you stories of how fearful they were. They describe in vivid detail because they remember everything about what it is like for the unimaginable to happen, to watch your family members be killed in front of you. And then there is a sense of urgency that stays with you .  .  .  

Ngofeen: From them?

Tirana: From them, I think, which triggers a sense of urgency in those of us that do this work, and my colleagues who are documenting these testimonies is there is a sense of urgency that we must propel the world to do something.

Ngofeen: Let's talk about double standards. Like in the US, we've seen different approaches to human rights when it comes to Ukraine versus what's been happening in Gaza. What do you make of that?

Tirana: One of the things - it's not new, but it was, it became so acute in 2024, was how pervasive double standards have become in the defense of human rights. You know, I remember, during our World Report release just after, you know, the full fledged invasion of Ukraine had taken place, there was this moment where you could show the world what good looked like in terms of defending those whose human rights were being abused.

There was a mobilization across the world to support Ukrainian refugees who were moving into Europe to, you know, sanction Russia, to condemn Russia's actions using the Security Council, using the General Assembly, using the Human Rights Council. Investigations were triggered in a record time to look at abuses that were taking place in Ukraine.

And there was massive support for those investigations across the world, and support for the work of the International Criminal Court. You know, that is essentially the high bar. We should be calling for the international community to be approaching every single situation the same way.

The same robust response, uh, should be applied to the situation in Sudan and of course in the war in Gaza. Instead, what we have seen is none of the tools in the human rights toolkit, in the accountability toolkit, were being mobilized with such, uh, fervor. Uh, when it came to Gaza. Actually it's quite the opposite.

It was that the US continued to arm Israel despite mounting evidence that the Israeli forces were using these weapons to kill Gazan civilians; that the way in which the Israeli defense force was conducting its operations as the war continued showed that they were responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

We have seen little action from the UN Security Council.   You know, we have seen that at least the courts, the international criminal justice system has been able to step in to a degree.   We have seen that arrest warrants have been issued both for, uh, Hamas officials and Israeli officials who have been charged with committing crimes.

But we didn't see any support for the court when that happened, and it implicated Israeli leaders like Netanyahu and Gallant. Actually quite the opposite. We have seen a stance, particularly in the US that is looking to sanction the court for taking these sort of actions. We see increased weapons transfers when it came to the war between Israel and Gaza.

And the message that that sends, unfortunately, is that some lives are worth more than others. When there is inaction on Sudan, from the Security Council, from the organizations and the governments who are responsible for upholding these standards and protections of civilians, it sends a message that some lives are worth more than others and that human rights apply to some situations and not to others, and that is just fundamentally untrue and damaging to the human rights movement, but it is not inevitable. 

That's the important thing to remember. It is not inevitable, and it is within the power of the actions of states, whether it's the United States or members of the European Union, or for that matter, countries in the Global South.

You know, it's not to say that countries in the Global South are not guilty of double standards. This is an issue for all states and we need to see a consistent approach to the application of human rights. We need to see a consistent approach when it comes to ensuring that there is accountability for human rights abuses and the most serious crimes that we see on the battlefield.

Ngofeen: So I want to move to Syria. Understatement to say there's been a lot of news in Syria in recent weeks. You also have a lot of experience in Syria. And when you see the news in Syria now, what do you see?

Tirana: So, I wasn't working directly inside Syria, so I worked on Syrian refugees, but I was at Human Rights Watch as a researcher during the Arab uprisings.

And at the beginning of the uprising in Syria, that then became a full fledged civil war. You know, I remember distinctly interviewing Syrian refugees who were coming into Iraq and taking boats to get into Egypt, who were describing what it was like to live in cities like Aleppo, which were under constant bombardment.

I remember hearing the stories. Of protesters who had stood up in those initial early days of the revolution, describing what it was like to be taken away and taken to these prisons, you know, our researchers documented vivid accounts of being held in stress positions. We knew about the infamous Sednaya prison, um,

Ngofeen: Sorry, stress positions?

Tirana: Oh, stress positions, so they would be held, uh, prisoners would be held for hours and tortured essentially with their hands sort of held above their heads tied to posts suspended from windows or from poles on the, off the ceiling for hours. People were beaten and tortured, um, actually, back during this period Human Rights Watch wrote a report which documented the entire sort of what we called a torture archipelago, an entire system of network of torture centers, which were being run by the regime and what we're seeing now that the Assad regime has fallen, one of, in, one of our teams went in within the, within the first days of the regime falling, and they went into the Sadia prison and they were able to confirm that everything that we had documented in these, uh, reports years ago where we didn't have access was true. The way that the cells looked, um, the way that they described being taken, the conditions in which they were held.

And so what we are seeing now is that the regime is gone, but the legacy of the Assad regime and the abuses that they inflicted on the population have left a deep scar. And, you know, I was talking to my colleague who was there where people were coming up and asking her, like, you know, where would I find my, my sibling or my brother when they were in the prison, um, they were asking if there was anybody else that had not been released.

So you see hundreds of desperate families now looking for those who were part of the thousands of people that went missing during the regime. It's a really extraordinary moment in Syria right now, but it's early days.

[HWR ad: Tanya Lakshima]

Deutsche Welle: It is one of the most dangerous and impassable regions in the world, yet this year alone 300,000 desperate people have tried to cross it, in the search for a better life. The infamous Darién Gap on the border between Colombia and Panama…

Ngofeen: You were just recently in one of the hot spots in the world when it comes to migration, the Darién Gap, what did you learn being there?

Tirana: You know, we often talk about migration crises, like they’re something that appear out of nowhere, right? Um, that's the first mistake. The migration crisis doesn't begin at the southern border of the United States.

Ngofeen: Yes.

Tirana: Um, it begins, you know, well before and majority of those who crossed the Darién Gap in 2024 were from Venezuela.   

Ngofeen: Okay. 

Tirana: They were leaving Venezuela because of the widespread and systematic repression that has taken place under the Maduro government. And the place that we met the migrants and migrant families was at two ports. One is called Necocli and the other is called Turbo. 

The one thing that you notice before you even start having conversations with migrants, everything is said in hush whispers.   And the reason for that is that those ports and the boats that these migrants are about to get on so that they can go to the mouth, the entrance of the jungle, the Darién, is controlled by a gang called the Gulf Clan. All of this is managed and run in a multi-million dollar industry for organized crime.

And what you see when you arrive at the first port is families holding garbage bags with all of their worldly belongings. You see lots of little shops selling Wellington boots, water purification tablets, ponchos to try and keep dry and sometimes tents. When you start to see the images that come out of the actual jungle, after the first leg of the journey, there are multiple legs across the Darien, is that you see lots of abandoned tents, because they're just too heavy to cross. 

So our researchers have documented and what people have told us about the crossing is that we see them at the last moment where it's comfortable. They have been sleeping on the beach waiting for their time to buy the ticket to get onto a boat. 

Ngofeen: Run by a gang. 

Tirana: And they'll cross a gulf and then they will get off on the other port and they'll walk and begin. Literally walking, and you see a lot of women with children, and you see a lot of young able bodied men, and they're carrying children, and you think to yourself, how will they be able to carry three children for anywhere between five and eleven days? You know, they walk into the jungle and they have to do river crossings, and these river crossings are sometimes with torrents of strong currents, water gushing, and so the children are handed over to some of these more able bodied young men, and that's where the family separation, we're told, takes place quite often, because people cross at different points, speeds with different obviously strength and physical ability. So you have somebody walking off, potentially, and we heard these stories with your child, and you just hope that you cross the river yourself safely and that you'll find them at the next stop. The pathways in the Darién are becoming wider and wider because more people are crossing. They've crossed through the water and the sound - we saw in one of the, uh, some video footage that was shared with us, had this noise that was just so loud. And it was the buzzing of mosquitoes.

Ngofeen: Oh, wow.

Tirana: It is the relentless sound of jungle and mosquitoes. And what families tell us is, They are just constantly thinking about how will I feed the children? How will we make the next crossing? People are often injured. They have, they fall, they slip, they break their ankles or twist [00:18:00] them and they rely on others to help them through. So it is perilous for women. One of the most disturbing things that we heard about was the prevalence of sexual violence. And it has become, for women who are traveling on their own, it's become so prevalent that actually they were carrying the morning after pill with them because it was the only way that they had any sort of agency to keep themselves safe or protect themselves from getting pregnant.

Ngofeen: 2024 was the year of elections. Loads of people all over the world voted. What do those elections tell us?

Tirana: Yes. More than two billion people went out and voted. So that tells us that people care. Uh, they want their voices heard. But there is also, when we look at the results, we can see that there were a number of leaders who were elected running off a somewhat anti-rights agenda. And what we have seen is that the first target of the attacks on rights is often against particular groups like the LGBT community, women, um, and migrants. 

But then, you know, we know from our 50 years of documenting human rights abuses around the world, is that these are early warning signs for what can become a serious backsliding into autocracy. Because if leaders are able to get away with attacks on the rights of these groups, then they'll start going for institutions, the institutions we rely on to protect our human rights, like the media, like civil society.

They'll start attacking things like free speech, um, your freedom of assembly, the right to protest. And if they're successful in doing that, then the next step is going after political opposition, where they can essentially consolidate power. And then we have seen that these types of leaders will then go after the institutions that can hold them to account, like the courts.

When it comes to the United States, Trump, we know what we're in for. It was written down in Project 2025. We have seen statements that have been made by the president about plans to start mass deportations. And we know that we are going to have to hold the line to protect human rights in the United States.

In other countries around the world, you know, we are seeing people rise up to protect human rights. You know, what elections showed us is that people care about what their leaders do. But what we've seen even just in the last few weeks in, in South Korea, for example, is that the people, civil society, they will not sit back and allow power to be wielded in a way that curtails and crushes their rights.

So, you know, I think, yes, it was a year where many elections took place. There is a very mixed bag of results all over the world. We have some rights, respecting leaders. We definitely have leaders across the world, they do not share the same commitment to human rights. And so what that really does mean for 2025 is civil society, people, the institutions, we are going to have to be vigilant to hold elected leaders or all leaders for that matter, to account. We're going to need to be vigilant in 2025.

Host: …Tirana Hasan, the executive director of Human Rights Watch.

You can read the World Report 2025 on Human Rights Watch’s website hrw.org.   

The news clips in this episode came from Al Jazeera, the PBS News Hour, NPR, ABC News, ABC News Australia, CNN and Deutsche Welle.

You’ve been listening to Rights and Wrongs, from Human Rights Watch. This episode was produced by me and Curtis Fox. Our associate producer is Sophie Soloway. Thanks also to Ifé Fatunase, Stacy Sullivan, and Anthony Gale. 

I’m Ngofeen Mputubwele. Talk to you again in two weeks. 

SFX: waves

Host: Once upon a time, there was a group of about 58 small islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean. They were uninhabited when the Portuguese came upon them in the 1500s. When the French took over in the late 1700s they kidnapped and trafficked people from East Africa to work as slaves on coconut plantations. The enslaved workers also processed copra, or coconut meat,   which was pressed into coconut oil. In the early 1800s, the French ceded the islands to the British, who brought in additional laborers from south Asia. Together, these became the Chagossian people.

[music]

This group of islands is now known as the Chagos Archipelago. David Vine is a writer and anthropologist who wrote a book about Chagos and the later forced deportation of its people…

David Vine: Racism shaped every step of this sad, appalling story.   You have a group of almost entirely white Euro-American officials making decisions about a population of African and Indian ancestry.

Host: Chagossians speak a kind of French Creole. This is a Chagossian by the name of Rosemone Burtin …

Rosemone: speaking in Creole

Host: She’s saying, Every Saturday people would come together for the sega. Everyone would dance together… This is Iline Talete…

ILINE TALETE [translated]:  Everything we share, even the food we cook, we share.

Host:  She’s saying, roughly, We share everything, even the food we cook we share… This is Noella Gaspard…

NOELLA GASPARD [translated]: Our mom knew how to fish. We would plant.

Host: She said, Our mom knew how to fish. We would plant.

You know, it was home! There was a community!

{Music cuts}

Host: But all of this was about to be interrupted.

David Vine: ​​The secret deal began being worked out by the U.S. and British governments in the early 1960s .  .  .

Host: In 1966, the UK declared that there was no permanent population in Chagos, because they were preparing to make a deal with the United States.

David Vine: So, a group of officials in the U.S Navy hatched a plan.  They developed a plan to identify small islands around the world where they might build military bases in the future.   And Diego Garcia became the prime island on which they wanted to build a base.

Host: So how did the United Kingdom deal with this population, these hundreds of people that officially no longer existed?

DAVID VINE: The U.S. government dreamt up the idea of building a base on Diego Garcia. They were the ones who said the Chagossians had to be removed…

Host: The UK then decided they should be forcibly removed, not only from the island of Diego Garcia, but from all the islands in Chagos. This is Olivier Bancoult, a Chagossian activist…

OLIVIER BANCOULT: What happened to us, it's more purely like slavery. The way of uprooting people, forced people to leave their country. I can say that animals get better treatment

than human beings.

Host: Between 1967 and 1973, the British, supported by the US, forcibly removed the Chagossians from their islands. Forever. 

OLIVIER BANCOULT: It's a very shameful way that they uproot people from where they

belong, from their place of birth to another unknown country.

Host: To this day, Chagossians have not been allowed back to live – only occasional “supervised” visits. The islands are still a British colonial possession – the last one in Africa!  And Diego Garcia remains an important American military base.

This has been true for the past 50 years, and it was true when we started producing this podcast, and it’s true today. But, as Prime Minister Harold MacMillan once quipped when he was asked what was the greatest influence on his administration, “events my dear boy, events!”

Newsreel/Deutsche Welle: Britain has announced that it will give up its last remaining colony in Africa. You may never have heard of the Chagos islands, but [crossfade]

Newsreel/Channel 4 News: This necklace of islands in the Indian Ocean, under British control for more than 200 years, soon will be sovereign to Mauritius, an agreement between the two governments today ending years of bitter dispute, with the U.S. naval base at its heart.

Host:  Yes, between the time we started this podcast and now, things have changed … drastically. We’ll hear about this and what it all means later in the episode.

This is Rights & Wrongs, a podcast from Human Rights Watch.   I'm Ngofen Mputubwele. I am a writer, a lawyer, and a radio producer. Human Rights Watch asked me to look at human rights hotspots around the world through the eyes and ears of the people on the front lines of history.

This week on Rights and Wrongs, we’re asking, What happened to the Chagossians? And will this historical wrong be righted?

Ngofeen: So I'm joined from Nigeria by Mausi Segun. Mausi is the executive director of Human Rights Watch's Africa division. Hey, Mausi.

Mausi Segun: Hey Ngofeen!

Ngofeen: So correct me if I'm wrong, but I think a few years ago you took a vacation to Seychelles and, uh, you didn't spend all your time on the beach and relaxing. You decided to do some work. 
So can you tell me about what you ended up doing?  


Mausi: Indeed, this must have been, I believe it was 2021. My family and I decided we would go spend some time in Seychelles. But you know, the minute that I got onto Seychelles, the island, I remember asking our host of the Airbnb where we stayed, um, and I said to her, ‘you know, there are this group of people, Do you know anything? 
Have you heard the word Chagos before?’

And she said it's interesting that you would say that because just a few days ago, I heard someone on the radio talking about Chagos. I said, ‘do you remember his name? Can I find him?’ You know, and it was from her to another person. And, you know, the person who was coming to clean the house and they said, we'll find him for you. 
And they did.

So I met up with him. This was the leader of the Chagossian group in Seychelles. And we met up, you know, at a restaurant. My family was sitting somewhere and he was like, ‘I feel so bad that you're having to meet with me, but I am so grateful that Human Rights Watch, at least an international human rights organization, is finally looking into this situation. It's gone on for too long’. And so, yeah, we spent that evening and then he introduced me to a few other people. I took notes and, um, yeah, went back a couple of years later to finalize that research in Seychelles, um, but also, um, adding on, um, Mauritius, uh, while my colleagues, um, met with people in the UK and elsewhere. 


Ngofeen: So you've interviewed a bunch of Chagossians, those findings eventually landed into a Human Rights Watch report. And I want to ask you about a few of those people to get a sense of like, what's happened to folks. So first, can you tell me about Liseby's story?  


Mausi: So Liseby, Liseby was born in 1953 on one of the islands called Peros Banhos. 
Peros, as she described it, is very beautiful. Um, she worked for the Copra company. So this company that administered the island was, you know, as your, your, your introduction disclosed was into coconut, you know, farming and copra production and I guess oils from all of that. So she was a coconut peeler from the age of 12. 


She began to work. She was paid a little bit of money, you know, that she could spend, um, not in cash. Obviously there was no cash apparently on Chagos, there was no piece of money. There was no coins. There was no paper money. It was all in a savings account. People were also paid in kind. They were paid in terms of food, rations, oil, wine, uh, and all of that. 


So I think that she eventually went up to school for a bit, um, for a couple of years up to, what she said was standard, three. But then, you know, eventually she got married because yeah, what, what else was there and she lived on the island with her family. Now, when they were eventually told that they all had to evacuate the island, she was pregnant. 


Lisbey was pregnant, I believe, with her first child. This was 1973 - April 1973. And then they got on this boat. The condition of the evacuation that she described to me was horrible. They shared the cabin on the boat, that's what they called it, with animals like pigs and horses. Of course, people fell ill. 


She also fell ill. There were no toilets on that boat. So, you know, they went to the bathroom in the same room that they slept and ate in.   You know, so she saw people die. She saw their bodies thrown into the water, and then she also fell ill herself. By the time they got to Port Louis in Mauritius, she was so ill that she lost her pregnancy. As a matter of fact, she could not leave the boat when everyone else did. She had to stay on the boat even while it was docked because she was so ill. And I remember speaking to the captain of that boat and he said, there was nothing I could do. I couldn't move her away because guess what? 


All of the other people, so many of the other people was sleeping and eating on the dock because they had nowhere to go. And so that's Liseby's story. She lost her pregnancy. She remembers it so vividly. She wept as she told me this story.  


Ngofeen: What was your experience hearing the story from Liseby?  


Mausi: You know, Ngofeen, I, you know, I am, I'm supposed to be the professional here and I've, you know, I have, I have researched really gruesome stories and accounts of, of war and conflict, but, uh, you know, Liseby wept as she, as she shared this story with me and I wept along with her, I could imagine the smell on that boat. A pregnant woman, I mean, nausea is a natural part of your being for most, most women. And then a pregnant woman on the sea, if you have, if you suffer from seasickness like I do. So, you know, in my brain, I'm like, okay, that's already bad enough. 


And then you have, you are stuck in a space with pigs and horses and then people going to toilet in that room and you're having to do - it's beyond making your flesh crawl. I could smell it.

You're not supposed to cry as the researcher. You're supposed to be the strong one. But I wept along with her. 
Because I am a woman and I know what it means to have your first pregnancy and to lose it under those conditions, but not just the pregnancy, the loss of the pregnancy, the loss of your home, where you knew to be home, her parents and grandparents and great grandparents were all buried on those islands. 


And, you know, they didn't know at that time that they would never return, but that was what happened to them. They'd never have been able to go back there. 

Ngofeen: Where is Liseby now? Do we know at all? 

Mausi: I met Liseby in Mauritius. She's still there. Um, she still lives there. Um, I mean, yeah, she, she got some, um, menial job because as you know, the education, uh, on the island was really limited. 


So they had very little, in terms of skills, there were no opportunities. Everything that was promised to them by the colonial administration and the administrators of the island, none of it came to fruition. They didn't get any support. They didn't get any education. They didn't get skilled training, nothing. 


Ultimately they paid them some meager compensation, maybe three times over the last few years, but that's been it.  


{Music starts}

Ngofeen: And can I ask you about, um, Louis, is it Louis's story?

Mausi: It's Louis.

Ngofeen: Louie. Okay. Yeah.  


Mausi: So Louie, Louis, Marcel Humbert, he, he, he was also born in, on, on Peros Banhos Nord. He was born in 1955, just, you know, two years after Liseby. 


You know, he, again, um, like everyone else, he describes the life on the island. He talked about how easy it was. There was work, but he described it as being like paradise. His mom had been born in Peros Banhos and worked in Copra. They had some savings, you know, from her work with the company. It was 1967. He was just 12 years old. 
His family wanted to go on holiday to go spend some of this money because, um, like I said earlier, they couldn't spend cash in Chagos, but they could spend it elsewhere. So they had taken a trip to Mauritius. It was himself, his mother, four, five family members, but they left the others on the island. Those who couldn't travel for some reason.  

They spent about six months. 
It was a long holiday. Um, and then, his mom went to the agent's office to book their return trip home. And the agent told his mother, “People are no longer allowed on the island because it is about to be closed”. I mean, that was, they had never heard that before because his mother's mother and her own mother had all lived and died in Chagos. So what do you mean by the island is about to be closed? And they said, “well, it's about to be closed. You can't go back”. And she said, I remember vividly being so sad that I began to cry when I realized that we wouldn't be able to go back because they had left his other siblings, four brothers and his sister in Chagos. 


His mother was also weeping and she said to him, “now we will live a very different life”. And in his words, that's when the nightmare started. They had to go live with family members in Mauritius. You know, again, work was hard. His father eventually was able to join them, but their lives truly changed, how and where they lived. 


Paradise was lost to them. The cash based economy they weren't used to suddenly became the controller of their lives. You know, these are people who had never earned cash before suddenly had to try to earn cash and use it to make a living. You know, he says, you know, all of the all of the years that he spent, the pain has never been erased from his memory and the desire to return to their homes in Chagos has never left him. But you know, hearing these people tell this story, this man, you know, he talked about the 54 years of his life that he spent waiting. I, I am just so amazed by their resilience. They still have hope that they will be able to return.   They, many of those who lived on the islands who were old enough to have the memories, very strong memories of the islands, they are dying out. Some of those are interviewed even last year, 2022 and 2023. They have died. Their hopes did not come to pass, but there is still hope that those who are living and their children and their children's children will be able to return to Chagos.

[music, fade under]

Host: I’ll get back to Mausi in a few minutes. But now I want to introduce you to a Chagossian.

Ngofeen: Bon jour!

Ellianne: Bon jour!

[Laughter]

Host: Elliane Baptiste is a second generation Chagossian. Her father is Mauritian, but her mother was born in Chagos, which means her mother is first-generation, according to their way of accounting for the generations since the expulsion.

Ellianne: My mom is in Mauritius. I'm here in the UK. I need to continue the fight as the next generation.

Host: Ellianne grew up in Mauritius, and now lives in London. I wanted to get a sense from her what it’s like to be a part of a community that lost its homeland.  

Ngofeen: Do you remember at all when you were a kid, when you first started hearing about Chagos? 

Ellianne: Yes, I do remember the first time it really hit me.  So it was in 2006  when they did the first journey to the Chagos Islands for a visit. 

Host: This was the first of the supervised visits of Chagossians to their home islands.   Soldiers followed them around everywhere and made sure they were all on the return boat.   Ellianne would’ve been about 13 years old at the time.  

EB: So everyone gathered on the Mauritian port to wave goodbyes to the family. This is where I knew,  um, what was happening. My mom is going back to her, the land that where she was born. I also remember, one day we were watching the news and they were talking about, um, the Chagossians and their struggle and I remember the story really struck me and, uh, I felt very sad. And then I saw my mom, she had tears rolling down her cheeks. I asked, ‘why? Why is this making you, you know, so upset?’  She couldn't talk. She couldn't talk to tell me. So my dad said to me, You're too young to understand now, but one day you will. Obviously I listened. And then I remember saying to my mom, Don't worry, one day I will tell your story.

Host: When she was 15 years old Ellianne left Mauritius and went to the UK to join her older sisters to pursue educational opportunities she said they wouldn’t have in Mauritius. In 2002 they had been granted British citizenship because their mother had been born on Chagos. Many other Chagossians – many of her cousins, for example – were not granted British citizenship, because their mothers had been born after the expulsion, in Mauritius or Seychelles or somewhere else. This is one of the reasons the community remains so fragmented. In any case, Ellianne is a part of the Chagossian community in the UK, and they like to get together and be .  .  .   Chagossians…

Ellianne: I’ve heard from many Chagossians, um,  how they lived on, on the islands, um, that, that unity,  um, it's, It's like you can't even see it when, you know, there's gathering, um, how, like, everyone knows everyone, everyone is related.   That is something that, you know, I would want to, I would fight to keep alive, um,  apart from, you know, the food, the  delicious food and, um, and the music.

[Sega music]

Host: The Chagossian diaspora has strained the unity Elliane speaks of. There are differences of opinion across the diaspora. Yet…

Ellianne: we all have  the same goals. Everyone wants, um, the islands to come back to the chagossians and for all the Chagossians and their descendants to have the right to go back  or have the choice, um, whether they want to go back or not.

We all have the same aim, but we all have different paths to that aim and different opinions.  And, um,  those in, uh, in Mauritius have a different perspective compared to those who are in the UK and those in the Seychelles who never got any compensation, they have a whole different, um, perspective and a whole different opinion. 

*HRW ad*

Ngofeen: You're from Nigeria.

Mausi: Uh huh.

Ngofeen: … former British Colony, what was it like for you to be on this side of British colonialism, but be interviewing people who are still going through British colonialism?

Mausi: Yeah, you know, all of the different identities that I wear, you know, as an African, as a Nigerian, as a woman,  a lawyer and as a human rights advocate came to the fore, uh, with this project, you know, interviewing these people, um, who are a distinct people with their, their own identity as Indigenous African people in Africa who have suffered this, widespread and systematic attack. These attacks are crimes and Human Rights Watch has found that these are crimes against humanity, they have been persecuted on the ground of their race and ethnicity. So for me, as an African woman today,  seeing this happening in the 2000s is atrocious. The fact that it is ongoing, it is not historical, I am not reading this from a history textbook. Chagos is a colony of Britain, supported by the United States. Honestly, it felt personal.  It felt really close to home, and it still does today.

Human Rights Watch is one organization where, you know, we have history. We have experiences of working for decades, just to push through an issue. But we ultimately do get the business done. We get the change that we've been working on.

And I believe very strongly because we're not going to give up, until it is done, that the Chagossians would get justice, and that justice will include their right to return to Chagos, and that the harm that they have experienced will, with full compensation, will be paid for. There would be justice for them and everything they've suffered.

Ngofeen: That was Mausi Segun BEFORE the news came out. And the news, which you may have seen in the New York Times or the BBC or somewhere else, is that the UK is giving up sovereignty of the Chagos islands to Mauritius. It’s not a done deal, a treaty still has to be signed. But, I’m here with Mausi Segun again, to get her reaction.

Mausi, the devil is always in the details. Is this good news for Chagossians or something else?

Mausi: It could be, depending on who you ask. Honestly, this is the first time in a really long time for the Chagossians that the, both the UK government and the US government have clearly dropped their opposition to the return of Chagossians to the islands, except Diego Garcia. And that's one negative that I will come back to. Historically, and even until very recently, this seemed like an impossibility. They had said categorically that a return to the islands would not be possible. So this statement, um, even though we don't have the details yet of the, the treaty that both countries have said they would sign, I think that this indication is just a clear one that there is progress. 


The other part of it is that the statement says that both governments will take steps to address the wrongs of the past. This is the first time that we are hearing, including the U. S. government, say clearly that wrongs have been done to the Chagossians. They have in the past, you know, mentioned things like, uh, regrets, uh, you know, the way they were treated, but not saying anything about clear wrongs done to them. 
 This acknowledgement, you know, would be meaningless without concrete rights, guarantees, for sure, but it is a first step.

And the third part of, uh, you know, what we consider to be positive is that the statement included a commitment to some financial settlement.

Um, what is for us concerning is first the fact that the Chagossians were completely blindsided by this. 
They didn't even know that this was coming. I think for a lot of people, it's, it's, it's, it's jarring that this is happening again. Decisions are being made about their land, about their home, about their lives without their participation. So that's concerning for us, um, in terms of human rights. Um, the second thing would be the explicit exclusion of Diego Garcia, the biggest of the islands. 
Most of the Chagossians, um, lived and were exiled from Diego Garcia.  


Ngofeen: And if I understand correctly, Diego Garcia, the largest island, that's sort of the strategically important one, because that's where the military base, the US UK military base is located,  


Mausi: That's where the base is located. But, you know, even Diego Garcia is not just one island. It's, it's a group of islands and the base is on the biggest of the strips of the strip of islands. There is absolutely no reason why Chagossians cannot go back to live on the other islands that are in Diego Garcia. This exclusion completely cuts off Diego Garcia from Chagos. For us, um, it's, it's unacceptable. 
It would mean a continuation of the crimes that have been committed against the Chagossians. You know, so that's the second one. And just that the lack of language around the right of the Chagossians to return, there is nothing explicit about their right to return, whether to Peros Banhos or to Salomon Island or the other smaller islands in, in Chagos. 
The, the, the lack of clarity also around the finance, uh, that they, you know, including a clear. specification of payment of compensation or reparation to the Chagossians is a sore point. It's not a welfare. It's not a charity. It is a right.  


Ngofeen: Thank you, Mausi.  


Mausi: Thank you.  


Ngofeen: Eliane Baptiste, I'm curious. What is your reaction to the news that Britain is ceding sovereignty to Mauritius of the Chagos Islands? 


Ellianne: It all came as a surprise. Although we knew there was negotiations happening, we were not part of it, the negotiations. We did not know what stage it was at. We didn't know it was being concluded or anything as such. to just hear it in the news, it was a surprise. And for me personally, it's like, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop because yes, we've got the, the - Mauritian has been handed the sovereignty of the Chagas Islands, but not Diego Garcia, where my mom was born. 


And It's sad to know that she won't be able to resettle on the island where she was born, and many others as well. And, um, there's so much still up in the air. So, yeah, mixed feelings, I would say. It is a massive step forward, but the fight is far from over.  


Ngofeen: Say the treaty gets signed. Yes. You think you would pack your bags?

Ellianne: This is a, this is an answer that I've always, you know, we've already discussed as a family years ago, and it's a big yes. Um, I'm packing my bags. I'm getting out of here.

Host: That was Elianne Baptiste.

You can read much more about Chagos at hrw dot org.

The Chagossian music in this episode comes from Sega Tambour Chagos and the Chagos Tambour Group. Human Rights Watch would like to thank them for their support and collaboration throughout the research and work on Chagos.

The newsclips were from Deutschewelle and Channel 4 News.

You’ve been listening to Rights and Wrongs, from Human Rights Watch. This episode was produced by me and Curtis Fox. Our associate producer is Sophie Soloway. Thanks also to Ifé Fatunase, Stacy Sullivan, and Anthony Gale.

I’m Ngofeen Mputubwele. Talk to you again in two weeks.