(New York) – Human Rights Watch will present a podcast twice a month starting May 6, 2024, that will explore human rights hotspots around the world through the eyes and ears of people on the front lines. Rights & Wrongs will take listeners behind the scenes of in-depth Human Rights Watch investigations.
Human Rights Watch researchers work in more than 100 countries across the globe, producing dozens of meticulously researched reports every year. Those reports, grounded in international human rights law, are directed at government officials and policymakers and aim to end abuses and change government policies. Rights & Wrongs will bring that research to life in an immersive medium with compelling accounts that are accessible to a general audience.
“From a Ukrainian city to a Bangladesh shipyard, we will take listeners to the places where human rights violations are happening and hear firsthand powerful stories about the fight to speak freely, to get a decent standard of living, or simply, just to live,” said Mei Fong, chief media officer at Human Rights Watch.
The series will be hosted by Ngofeen Mputubwele, formerly of The New Yorker, and produced by Curtis Fox, a veteran podcast producer for National Public Radio and The New Yorker. Rights & Wrongs will feature interviews with Human Rights Watch researchers as well as voices from the countries where they work.
The first episode of Rights & Wrongs looks at Human Rights Watch efforts to document the destruction of Mariupol as Russian forces laid siege and cut off communications to the Ukrainian city. Documenting what happened became all the more critical when Russia began destroying evidence of war crimes as it began to rebuild Mariupol in Russia’s image.
Subsequent episodes of Rights & Wrongs will explore how Human Rights Watch documented the killing of Ethiopian migrants by Saudi border guards at a remote Saudi-Yemen border outpost, how the shipping industry sends end-of-life ships to Bangladesh to be scrapped in dangerous yards that harm workers and pollute the environment, and how governments reach across borders to silence or deter dissent of their own nationals abroad.
Rights & Wrongs will be available on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, and Amazon.
