Voyage for Human Rights
The Dutch organization Miles4Justice will sail a yacht in honor of Human Rights Watch into New York Bay on 8 September 2009, concluding a 1,000-mile journey as part of the NY400 – Holland on the Hudson celebration. The voyage down the Atlantic coast replicates the northern leg of Henry Hudson’s original voyage, and Miles4Justice will dock in New York 400 years to the day after Hudson first arrived in 1609. The week’s events celebrate the openness, tolerance, and free spirit of the Dutch pioneers who settled New Amsterdam, and mark 400 years of Dutch-American friendship. “Miles4Justice’s journey is an unconventional but wonderfully appropriate way to focus international attention on Human Rights Watch and the work we do to end abuses worldwide”, said Carroll Bogert, associate director of Human Rights Watch. “We’re opening an office in the Netherlands later this year to support and encourage the Dutch traditions of tolerance and support for human rights.” Human Rights Watch is an independent organization dedicated to defending and protecting human rights, working in more than eighty countries. Through its research and advocacy, Human Rights Watch works to expose human rights violations around the world, to give voice to the oppressed, and to hold oppressors accountable for their crimes.