This is a guest post by Margie in Tel Aviv
Judge Richard Goldstone will receive the Stockholm Human Rights Reward on Tuesday. Can it be said that he deserves it?
Some of the highlights of his career as given by the Huffington Post may be summarised as follows:
In 1986, at the height of the protests against Apartheid – when he could have shown mercy at an Appeals Court hearing – he ruled against a thirteen year old boy convicted for disrupting school in a protest against apartheid.
Still under the same regime he ruled against two young men for the crime of having in their possession a recording of the voice of Oliver Tambo – a founding member of the African National Congress.
He was severely censured in Yugoslavia for hastily indicting an inappropriate person, which he did in order to secure the funding for the coming year.
Despite the above, there is justification for the prize. He was required to find evidence of the violation of human rights law by Israel in the Palestinian territory and he put all his powers of attention to detail into doing just that.
