Al Jaber, owner of a company HRW "had previously identified as complicit in labor rights abuse", under the condition that the donation not be used to support LGBT advocacy in the Middle East and North Africa. After The Intercept reported the donation, it was returned, and HRW issued a statement that accepting it was "deeply regrettable". In August 2020, the Chinese government sanctioned HRW executive director Kenneth Roth—together with the heads of four other U.S.-based democracy and human rights organizations and six U.S. Republican lawmakers—for supporting the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement in the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests. The leaders of the five organizations saw the sanctioning, whose details were unspecified, as a tit-for-tat measure in response to the earlier U.S. sanctioning of 11 Hong Kong officials. The latter step had in turn been a reaction to the enactment of the Hong Kong National Security Law at the end of June. The New York Times reported in October 2021 that HRW left Hong Kong as a result of the Chinese sanctions, with the situation in Hong Kong henceforth to be monitored by HRW's China team. The decision to leave came amid a wider crackdown on civil society groups in Hong Kong. Academic Immanuel Ness writes that HRW rarely criticizes human rights abuses by the U.S. and its allies, and almost always reaches conclusions consistent with Western foreign policy positions. See also References External links 1978 establishments in the United States Organizations established in 1978 Recipients of the Four Freedoms Award