WASHINGTON (JTA) — Hillary Clinton is set to nominate a Jewish activist who has led efforts to counter anti-Semitism as her human rights czar.
The secretary of state soon will name Michael Posner, a founder of Human Rights First, as assistant secretary for democracy, human rights and labor, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday. Posner, a lawyer, has broad legal experience in the field of human rights, helping to draft anti-torture legislation in the United States and to set up human rights tribunals in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.
Human Rights First is unique among the major human rights watchdogs in that it targets governments for not doing enough to combat hate crimes.
"Anti-Jewish bombings, arson, and personal assaults in Europe are proliferating in an environment of incitement to violence," Posner told a U.S. Senate hearing in April 2004. "Yet despite a continued high rate of antisemitic threats and attacks in large parts of Europe, only a handful of the fifteen governments of the European Union systematically monitor and report on these and other manifestations of racist violence."
