Peter Bouckaert

UCSB’s Distinguished Alumni Award winner for 2012, Peter Bouckaert, and a Moroccan prince third in line to the throne, Prince Moulay Hicham, stopped in Santa Barbara to discuss the Arab Spring and their work for the watchdog organization Human Rights Watch (HRW). As media outlets have closed many of their foreign bureaus to cut costs, Human Rights Watch researchers have filled some of that void. Bouckaert explained to UCSB students there was no substitute for “real-time, on-the-ground investigations.”

As Bouckaert told a captive audience at Fess Parker’s Doubletree Resort for an HRW fundraiser:

“I had the privilege to be present at the first Friday protests in Egypt. The night before, the government had shut down the internet and mobile phone network, and arrested many activists. We watched in the city of Alexandria as the people came out of the mosques and began protesting, raising their hands to the police and shouting “selmiya, selmiya” [peaceful, peaceful]. They were immediately and viciously attacked by the police. We saw people killed in front of us.” Despite the police brutality, thousands more came to the streets and so began the work of documenting the crimes of the Egyptian regime.