Human Rights Watch's Hassan on bearing witness and exposing injustice

Tirana Hassan had to take shelter to escape the fighting in Libya during the waning days of Muammar Gaddafi’s dictatorship. She drove through militia-controlled areas of northern Iraq and was asked to leave Indonesia while investigating sectarian violence for allegedly conducting research without permission. A trained social worker and law graduate, she helped create an organization that provided legal services to asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran held in Australia’s infamous desert detention center. These experiences have come into sharp focus as she succeeded Kenneth Roth in March as executive director of Human Rights Watch, or HRW, a sprawling group that operates in more than 90 countries and has over 500 staff members. “I literally started my career at Human Rights Watch, I remember, with my laptop connected to a car battery because I was living in Senegal and at the time we had long power cuts,” Hassan told Devex in an interview. “Now, leading the organization and the same committed people who I had been working with those many years ago and many new staff is a real privilege.” Hassan takes over at a time when the misuse of technology is threatening human rights like never before and democracy is on the back foot. Meanwhile, the effects of climate change are forcing people to flee their homes. While in the past these challenges may have been seen as isolated instances in far-flung places in the world, they have now become global threats. Old ways of “putting peace above justice” don’t work, Hassan said, as evidenced by the situation in Sudan, where, following the toppling of autocrat Omar al-Bashir in 2019, an awkward civilian-military alliance formed as part of a planned transition toward democracy. But it didn’t last long. The military, led by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, took power, deposing a civilian-led government in 2021. Burhan and his rival, Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, are now battling for power after having both been accused of human rights abuses — for which neither was ever held accountable. “All that did was enable very serious human rights abusers to be legitimized,” Hassan said, “and then carry out this vicious cycle of violence where it's civilians who really are paying the price.” Hassan sees Human Rights Watch's role as a link between grassroots organizations on the frontlines of these fights and those in power who can rectify the wrongs done to people and their liberty. “That is very much something that we see as important, not just for Human Rights Watch but for the people that we work with and work for — is to fortify the human rights movement, to strengthen that, to be more than just one voice and that is the future,” she said. Third culture kid Hassan is Australian by citizenship. Her family moved to Adelaide when she was 3 and she grew up in the suburbs of the city with her brother, Pakistani father, and her Malaysian-born, half-Sri Lankan, half Singaporean-Chinese mother. Moving to Australia was not a choice. Her academic father had written a book while in Singapore, criticizing the country’s housing policy, which rattled authorities there and forced them to leave. They moved to Australia not intending it to be their permanent home but the family ended up becoming citizens, something that Hassan said she is grateful for. Still, the Australia she grew up in was a much less multicultural place than it is now. She knew she was different. “I always grew up with the sense that I was on the periphery even though I was very well adjusted and went to a very inclusive school and environment,” she said. “But when I think about those experiences, I think that it always left me with the sense there is always somebody else who has a different experience to the mainstream and that was something that I've always grown up with.” Her family history imbued her with a sense of dislocation and how history can shape the destiny of the powerless. Hassan’s father Riaz was forced to move to what is now Pakistan in 1947 after the Indian subcontinent was split in two following independence. Violence forced 14 million refugees to flee after partition cleaved the country into Pakistan, which is majority-Muslim, and Hindu-dominated India. Historians say about 2 million people died. “They left because there was a morning where Muslim families in their village in India, households were being burnt and so my father and his family moved, as did many other families at that time,” Hassan said. Meanwhile, given that her mother’s side of the family has roots in Sri Lanka, she was always acutely aware of the three-decade civil war in the country, where her maternal grandparents’ interracial marriage was not accepted in their community. “So we grew up with this constant understanding that there is injustice in the world and that there is prejudice and that's not right. And that at the center of that, people suffer and they shouldn't,” she said. In high school, Hassan said that when she read a book about the anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko by South African Donald Woods, she had a visceral reaction to it. “I remember learning about apartheid at that particular point and being shocked that this could happen in the world and seeing the movie “Cry Freedom” and understanding what it was like and what it took to push back against such entrenched systemic injustice,” she said. On the ground These experiences shaped Hassan’s worldview and informed her career. She took a job as a social worker for refugees that had migrated to Australia and, for a time, worked in Los Angeles for at-risk young people in danger of being ensnared by gangs. She later went on to work in Darfur as the Sudanese region descended into civil war. She wrote about militias in Iraq and was in the midst of the fighting to oust Gaddafi in Libya. As a senior researcher in Human Rights Watch’s Emergencies Division, she carried out dozens of investigations in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. Being on the ground has been at the core of her work, she said. “Bearing witness, presenting the truth, and stitching together evidence has never felt more important,” Hassan told Devex. “We need to put it together in a way that ensures that decision-makers stand up, take notice, and take action — and that's what our on-the-ground presence really delivers.” Hassan said she is aware of the risks of working in human rights, especially when she and her colleagues have to be where abuses are taking place. “At times I found myself in dangerous contexts but our job was to navigate and mitigate the risks so we could do the job,” she said. “Some of these situations are scary, as are some of the perpetrators whose crimes we were documenting. I have sadly lost colleagues and friends while working in conflict settings.” As an organization, Human Rights Watch puts a limit on what risks to take and field researchers are trained to navigate precarious situations they may be confronted with. “I know the risks and take precautions but I would be a fool not to be scared sometimes,” Hassan admitted. Asked about the criticism of bias sometimes leveled by governments against Human Rights Watch, Hassan rejected such critiques. “Our job is to assemble the facts and establish the independent narrative and advocate for change,” she said. “It doesn't matter how big or how small, how powerful or not, or if you're a country or a corporation. Human rights is for all people and we will speak out wherever it's needed.” Leave room for grace After her appointment became official, Hassan shared her principles of leadership with her colleagues she posted on LinkedIn. She wrote that she wants everyone to have a seat at the table and believes that good ideas can come from anywhere, and she encouraged people to be constructive. Hassan added that “mistakes happen. Leave room for grace.” When asked why she thought it was important to articulate these principles, Hassan said that those who work in human rights tend to be clear about the why of what they do. But just as important for her is to create a culture where people feel safe and supported. “In leadership, we should be really transparent about what we want to achieve,” she said. “But, you know, you can't have those conversations openly unless you put it out in the world. So a little bit of vulnerability, I think, can go a long way. “It's something that we may not traditionally celebrate, as part of leadership in our sector. But I think it's necessary,” she added. Hassan said she never imagined that one day she would lead Human Rights Watch. “People who looked like me and sound like me with backgrounds like mine, we didn't lead organizations. That's not what we were told that we did,” she told Devex. She paid homage to the women who came before her, including her grandmother who refused to be dissuaded from marrying the person she loved even though her husband-to-be came from a different background. But she was clear that she got the job not because she is a woman or a person of color. She is now the executive director of an organization with 500-plus people because she has decades of experience as a human rights investigator, advocate, and social worker who has a law degree and a master’s degree in human rights. “I think everyone's just going to have to get used to the people in these jobs looking a little bit different but when it comes to our qualifications and our perspectives, you know, we bring something unique but we also bring that technical credibility that not only our organizations need but our movements need,” Hassan told Devex. Is she optimistic or pessimistic about the future of human rights? Hassan admits that it can feel overwhelming looking at the world right now. “I feel disappointed as I see the rise of anti-rights powers or autocrats, but that's just more reason that we have to stay and keep doing this work,” she said. “Sometimes we can reverse a bad law or stop abusive actions, sometimes it may be accountability and someone is found guilty of a crime, and sometimes you just stop a situation from getting worse. Each of those actions matters.”