The UN Responds: Press Release evading allegations and attacking UN Watch

February 2, 2017 — The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a press release in response to a UN Watch tweet regarding the practice of informing country delegations about prospective speakers brought to testify at the United Nations.

In the press release, the Office “strongly rejects the totally unsupported allegation […] that it endangered four Chinese human rights defenders who attended the Human Rights Council in Geneva in March 2013.” It goes on to say that it “deplores the efforts by organizations such as UN Watch” for taking the allegations a step further by tweeting “Top @UNHumanRights official informed #China of dissident planning to testify @UN. She was detained & died in prison.” 

Despite totally rejecting the allegations, the Office admitted to the practice of “confirming” the attendance of speakers to relevant country delegations upon request. They claim “Chinese authorities, and others, regularly ask the UN Human Rights Office, several days or weeks prior to Human Rights Council meetings, whether particular NGO delegates are attending the forthcoming session. The Office never confirms this information until the accreditation process is formally under way, and until it is sure that there is no obvious security risk.”

The press release then states that based on this confirmation they “frequently receive an official letter, a note verbale, from the Government of China alleging that the NGO in question is a terrorist organization, and listing specific allegations against the individual delegates it knows are coming and requesting they be denied accreditation.”

This effectively means that Chinese authorities are made aware prior to the start of the session of which specific dissidents are expected to come giving them the ability to prevent them from doing so. One of those attempts is the false labelling of dissidents as terrorists. Even if the UN has never denied entry based on these allegations (as they claim), the UN does not safeguard these dissidents and their families from repercussions in their home countries.  

The UN Human Rights Office denied having played any role whatsoever in the detention and tragic death of Cao Shunli, a Chinese dissident who came to Geneva to speak at a Human Rights Council side event. After “confirming” to the Chinese delegation that Ms. Cao would be in Geneva to attend an NGO event on cooperation with UN human rights mechanisms during the Human Rights Council session she was detained at the airport. Her whereabouts remained unknown for five weeks, until she resurfaced in custody, charged with “provocation”. During her incarceration, Cao Shunli’s health seriously deteriorated, allegedly due to torture, ill-treatment, and authorities’ failure to provide her access to medical care. She was admitted to hospital in a critical condition on 19 February 2014, and died on 14 March 2014.

UN Whistleblower, Emma Reilly, indicates in her complaint that in China’s case, “the bottom line is that your office did not confirm information already in China’s possession, but it provided China with new information knowing that China intended to use it to harass the human rights activists.” While attempting to deny involvement the press release has inadvertently confirmed the UN’s role in endangering the lives of brave human rights defenders and their loved ones.

In an email from then Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, Mr. Andrew Gilmour (see below), it is evident that he advises Eric Tistounet to modify his use of language in the press release in regard to UN Watch. Mr. Tistounet apparently disregarded the advice. It is also telling that Mr. Gilmour nonetheless recommended a “gloves off” approach to an established NGO that played no role in the scandal itself, but merely commented upon information in the public domain. No other NGO with no prior knowledge of the scandal was so singled out.