In an interview with Sky News Australia, UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer says the World Health Organization picked former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark to be co-chair of the inquiry into the origins of COVID-19 because “they know she’s going to give them a free pass.”

UN Watch criticized the appointment of Clark to the position of co-chair of the inquiry, arguing Clark has shown partisan support for the World Health Organization, whose actions she is supposed to be investigating throughout the inquiry.

“I think she was chosen for precisely the reason that she’s very close with the World Health Organization.”

“They know that over the past year, through the pandemic, she has given them the free pass,” Mr. Neuer told Sky News host Sharri Markson. “She’s defended their siding with China time after time.”

“She’s been in their court from the beginning.”

“So, they picked someone who is supposed to investigate the global response to the coronavirus pandemic which includes the WHO response, which includes what China did, and they know that she’s going to give them a free pass. That’ s very clear.”

“Certainly… if we’re meant to have trust in this so-called independent and impartial international panel, then we need to have a chair who appears impartial. And currently, there are reasonable grounds for a reasonable person to believe that she is not impartial.”

The Sky News report also did an excellent job of presenting all of the evidence documented in UN Watch’s open letter to Helen Clark:

The post WHO’s Coronavirus Inquiry: Chair Helen Clark is Not Impartial — Hillel Neuer on Sky News Australia appeared first on UN Watch.

Speaking at UN Watch’s press conference today concerning next week’s elections to the 47-nation U.N. Human Rights Council, Chinese rights activist Yang Jianli urged countries not to elect China. See his remarks below. UN Watch published a detailed report on the elections which examines the pledges and human rights record of each country running. Click here for the report.

On October 13, the UN General Assembly will be electing new members for the Human Rights Council’s 2021-2023 term, and China is running for the fifth time. During the one-year period of time when China was waiting to be eligible again to run for the Council’s membership, the Chinese government—under the increasingly draconian rule of Xi Jinping—has escalated human rights repression across the board, especially, with its crackdown on critics of the government’s handling of COVID-19 pandemic, persecution of ethnic religious minorities in Xinjiang, Tibet and Inner Mongolia, and annihilation of civil and political liberties in Hong Kong.

Nothing can be further from the truth than China’s voluntary pledge for its current bid for Human Rights Council membership. It claims, for example, that “since the outbreak of COVID-19 the Chinese Government has been giving top-most priority to people’s lives and health” and that “China has acted with openness, transparency and responsibility, updating COVID-19 information in a most timely fashion.” 

In July of this year our organization, Citizen Power Initiatives for China, issued a comprehensive research report entitled “Examining China’s Response to the Covid-19 Outbreak.”  Based on meticulous analysis of data, much of it directly from sources in China, the report establishes a day-by-day, objective record of the Chinese government’s response to the virus outbreak, especially in the critical month between December 26, 2019 and January 25, 2020. The report concludes among other things: 

1. The Covid-19 epidemic could have been stopped in its early state.
2. The Chinese government prioritized political stability over peoples’ lives and health.  
3. The Chinese Government deliberately suppressed information about the source and extent of the outbreak and the overall threat of the pandemic.
4. The Chinese Government deliberately misled the international community.

This is just one example. 

By any standard, China has grossly violated the Council’s founding principles and does not measure up to its membership criteria. Any statement suggesting otherwise is as cynical as ridicules.

We urge UN member states, especially the democracies, to seriously consider China’s human rights record. If this were an election for a “Human Rights Abusers Council” it would be more than proper to vote for China as it leads the entire world in violating human rights. 

But sadly, I find it imperative and necessary to remind democratic governments around the world that this is an election for the UN Human Rights Council and not the UN Human Rights Abusers Council. The only choice that commensurates with the values you claim to uphold is to vote “No” on China. 

Although the vote next week will be cast in a secret ballot, I urge the people of democracies to ask how your governments vote. You and we, the victims of the Chinese government abuses and China’s human rights defenders, deserve to know.

Thank you.

The post Yang Jianli Opposes China’s Election to the UNHRC appeared first on UN Watch.

GENEVA, June 18, 2020 — China took the floor at the U.N. Human Rights Council today to lash out at what it called “ungrounded attacks” by a human rights group that criticized Beijing’s new role on a UNHRC panel that will select 17 human rights experts this year.

China exercised its right of reply (see full text below) after Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a Geneva-based independent human rights group that monitors the United Nations, questioned the ability of the world body to credibly investigate racism and police brutality.

The Chinese delegate complained about Neuer “abusing the forum to level unwanted attacks against sovereign states,” and said he hoped that “this forum will not become a forum to abuse human rights.”

###

Following is testimony delivered by UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer before the United Nations Human Rights Council, in its debate on June 8, 2020:

Madam Chair, UN Watch condemns the killing of George Floyd, and stands with all victims of racism and police brutality.

The question today is: In combating the disease of racism, should we be turning to the United Nations?

Certainly the UN made a great contribution in 1946, when, in the aftermath of the Nazi atrocities, Eleanor Roosevelt, René Cassin, and other eminent figures gave the world the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Certainly this was true in 1948, when the UN adopted the Convention Against Genocide.

And certainly this was true in 1965, when the UN adopted the Convention Against Racial Discrimination. It was drafted by civil rights leader Morris Abram, the founder of our organization, who served on the UN sub-commission against discrimination.

But is it still true today?

Speakers here invoked the UN’s Durban Declaration on Racism, and its 2009 conference, which was held in this room. I was here.

UN Watch organized rallies with black African victims of the genocide in Darfur. Yet the UN and its Durban Conference refused to help them.

Instead, in this room, the world’s most notorious Holocaust denier, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of the Islamic Republic of Iran, who also advocated genocide, was the opening speaker.

Qaddafi’s Libya, which brutalized black migrants, portraying them as dealers of drugs and alcohol, was Chair of the Preparatory Committee.

Madam Chair, is the UN’s Durban process really part of the cure?

And is this UN Human Rights Council qualified to investigate racism and police brutality?

Let us consider who the prosecutors and the judges will be — the members of the council.

One is Mauritania, which has up to 500,000 black slaves. The leading anti-slavery activist, Biram Dah Abeid, was put in jail. And yet Mauritania was just elected as a member.

Another is Venezuela. They spoke here of police brutality. It’s a subject on which they have great expertise. In only five days last year, the Maduro government killed 47 protesters, and arbitrarily detained 900 people.

And who chooses the council’s experts? For reasons unclear­, the representative of China was just appointed, and will now play a central role in selecting 17 UN human rights experts this year.

This is the same government that has locked up 1 million Muslims in camps. Amazingly, last summer, 50 ambassadors from this UN Human Rights Council submitted a letter praising China for this action.

China just chaired the process of selecting the UN expert on freedom of speech, yet when courageous Chinese men and women tried to sound the alarm about the Coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, they were arrested, silenced, and disappeared

If we seek a real cure for the disease of discrimination, we need to find doctors who can promise, first, to do no harm.

CHINA EXERCISES RIGHT OF REPLY

Today our urgent discussion focuses on the combat against police brutality. And regrettably the NGO abused this item to level ungrounded attacks to China. A lot of content in his speech has nothing to do with the major theme of our discussion today.

Concerning this practice of abusing the forum to level unwanted attacks against sovereign states, we strongly oppose this practice. We do not hope that this forum will become a forum to abuse human rights.

The post U.N. clash: China lashes out over coronavirus criticism appeared first on UN Watch.

GENEVA, May 10, 2020 — In an interview today with Sky News Australia, Executive Director of UN Watch Hillel Neuer says the powers that be at the United Nations and the World Health Organization will “fight any attempt to hold China accountable” for the spread of COVID-19.

As Australia and other western countries push for an inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus and China’s handling of the deadly disease, Mr. Neuer said the UN is “doing absolutely nothing to support this.”

He pointed to World Health Organization chief Dr. Tedros Adhanom who he said was “basically spouting Chinese propaganda” when he praised Chinese President Xi Jinping for his “transparency and leadership.”

The post China, COVID-19 & the WHO — Hillel Neuer on Sky News Australia appeared first on UN Watch.