GENEVA, September 19, 2026 — Michelle Bachelet has withdrawn her bid to become the next United Nations secretary-general after suffering a crushing 11-1 defeat in the Security Council’s third straw poll.

The result marks a major victory for UN Watch, the Geneva-based human rights organization that led a months-long diplomatic and public campaign opposing the former Chilean president’s candidacy.

“Michelle Bachelet’s candidacy was defeated because governments could not ignore the record we placed before them,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch.

“When China imprisoned more than a million Uyghurs, when Vladimir Putin poisoned and jailed dissidents, when Iran persecuted women for showing their hair, and when Cuba and Venezuela crushed democratic opposition, Bachelet too often looked away. The United Nations must never reward silence in the face of tyranny.”

UN Watch’s campaign drew on its landmark 2022 report, Blind Eye to Dictatorships, which systematically reviewed the country-specific statements initiated during Bachelet’s 2018–2022 tenure as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The report documented what UN Watch described as a pattern of disproportionate scrutiny of democracies, combined with silence or minimal attention toward authoritarian regimes. It found that Bachelet failed to initiate statements on China’s mass detention of Uyghurs, Russian political prisoners, Iran’s forced-hijab laws, Turkish repression and major antisemitic attacks.

The study also found that Bachelet initiated more criticisms of the United States than of Nicolás Maduro’s dictatorship, despite 27 appeals made to her by UN Watch concerning abuses in Venezuela.

On May 19, UN Watch formally urged the Security Council to block Bachelet’s candidacy and sent her an open letter containing 11 questions about her record on China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea and other repressive regimes.

UN Watch simultaneously submitted detailed appeals to the Security Council missions of the United States, United Kingdom, France, Denmark, Latvia, Greece, Panama and Liberia.

“We did not ask the Security Council to take our word for it,” Neuer said. “We gave its members the evidence, the numbers and the unanswered questions. Bachelet held the UN’s most powerful human rights platform for four years. Governments had a duty to judge what she did with it, and whom she abandoned.”

The campaign gained international attention after Britain’s The Telegraph reported UN Watch’s warning that Bachelet would be a calamitous UN chief. Neuer also set out the case against her in The Jerusalem Post. The campaign was widely reported in Bachelet’s home region by Teletrece, El Mercurio, Ex-Ante, Diario Sur Noticias. UN Watch also amplified Bachelet’s remarks following a televised candidates’ debate in Geneva, leading to coverage in El País.

After successive straw polls exposed the weakness of her candidacy, Bachelet received only one favorable vote in the September 18 ballot and withdrew the following day.

“One vote for, and 11 against: the verdict could not be more clear,” Neuer said. “This was a crushing rejection of a candidacy that asked the world to forget four years of appeasing dictators.”

“Today is a victory for dissidents and political prisoners whose names were too often absent from Bachelet’s statements. It is also a warning to every future UN official: silence has consequences.”

What Next U.N. Secretary-General Must Do

UN Watch said it will continue scrutinizing the remaining contenders through its dedicated review of the candidates.

“The next secretary-general must have the courage and independence to confront powerful abusers and defend their victims without fear or favor,” Neuer said.

He listed five priorities for the next leader of the world body:

1. Restore moral clarity and credibility:  “The UN’s greatest asset is legitimacy, and it’s eroding. The next secretary-general needs to end the culture of false equivalence and selective outrage. When mass atrocities occur, the UN must name perpetrators clearly and consistently, whether they are powerful states or not.”

2. Enforce standards for UN officials and reports: “Too many UN mandate-holders operate as activists rather than impartial experts. The next secretary-general should establish strict evidentiary standards, transparency on funding, and real consequences for violations of the Code of Conduct. If UN reports are cited by courts like the ICJ, they must meet courtroom-level rigor.”

3. Stop empowering abusers inside the system: “Authoritarian regimes should not be chairing human rights bodies or shaping global norms. The next secretary-general should lead a coalition of democracies to block and expose these appointments, and make institutional hypocrisy politically costly.”

4. Refocus the UN on actual victims, not politics: “Too often, the system amplifies regimes and sidelines dissidents. The next secretary-general should systematically prioritize giving the floor to political prisoners, human rights defenders, and victims of repression, especially from places like Iran, China, and Venezuela.”

5. Distinguish perpetrators from victims: “The next secretary-general should insist on calling out serial abusers, and stop pretending that dictatorships are equivalent to democracies. If the UN cannot tell the difference between victims and their oppressors, it loses the reason it exists,” said Neuer.

ABOUT UN WATCH

UN Watch is a Geneva-based non-governmental human rights organization dedicated to holding the United Nations accountable to the principles of its Charter. Founded in 1993, it monitors UN institutions, exposes bias and misconduct, and advocates for human rights and UN reform. UN Watch receives no funding from any government.

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The independent Geneva-based watchdog group made its criticism today in a new report, entitled “Blind Eye to Dictatorships,” that analyzed all press releases and official statements initiated by Bachelet on specific countries.

The report counted all criticisms made at the discretion of Bachelet, rating them as weak, moderate or strong. The study excluded reports mandated by the 47-nation Human Rights Council, or global updates to the plenary.

UN Watch’s report praised Bachelet for calling out the coup by Myanmar’s military junta, crackdowns on dissent in Nicaragua, Russia’s military aggression in Ukraine and election-related repression in Belarus.

“However, during her four years as the world’s highest human rights official, Michele Bachelet routinely avoided criticizing some of the world’s worst human rights abusers, many of them powerful players at the UN who have sat on the Human Rights Council, such as Russia, China and Cuba,” said Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch.

“Apart from the long-delayed report released in the final minutes of her mandate, Bachelet in her 4-year term failed to initiate a single statement about China’s forced detention of a million Uyghurs.”

“The world’s top human rights official, who is uniquely authorized to act independently and hold governments to account, needs to speak truth to power and not pull punches in deference to political pressure,” said Neuer.

Bachelet never issued any press release about Iran’s oppression of dissidents, its discrimination of women, including police violence in enforcing the forced Hijab law, and its fomenting of terrorism.

Likewise, the report found that she failed to criticize Turkey’s arbitrary arrests, attacks on journalists, academics, and human rights defenders, instead only making criticisms of Turkish military actions in Syria.

Bachelet made no statements on Russian political prisoners, arbitrary arrests in Pakistan, or subjugation of women in Saudi Arabia. Only once did she criticize repression by Cuba’s communist government, with whom she was close as president of Chile.

In several instances, noted the report, Bachelet devoted more time to criticizing democracies than she did for some of the world’s most oppressive regimes. She condemned Israel and the U.S. many more times than she criticized North Korea, China, and the Taliban.

“While democracies must be held to account,” said Neuer, “a moral and merits-based approach would demand that the High Commissioner devote more of her office’s limited time and resources to those human rights victims in the world who suffer severe and systematic oppression and who have no recourse to free and fair elections, an independent judiciary, freedom of speech, and other basic institutions of democracy that act as a check and balance to executive power.”

“We urge the new high commissioner, Mr. Volker Türk, to lend his moral voice to the millions of human rights victims who most require the world’s help, and to speak out boldly and immediately in the face of egregious human rights violations,” added Neuer.

Click here for the full report.

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Blind Eye to Dictatorships

A Report on Michelle Bachelet’s Record As
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

Introduction and Methodology

This report examines the record of Michelle Bachelet as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights by examining a broad and indicative sample of her statements during four years in office.

UN Watch reviewed every country criticism published by Ms. Bachelet on her UN website during her tenure, from  September 1, 2018 through August 31, 2022, by searching the Media Center section of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). We reviewed statements published there by the High Commissioner, the Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, as well as their spokespeople.

Our findings refer only to official statements that were initiated by Michelle Bachelet at her own discretion. They do not count criticisms found in statements mandated by the Human Rights Council, global omnibus updates to the Council, statements made during or after official country visits, statements at UN events, thematic statements, statements made on annual commemorative days, or her farewell speech.

Key Findings

The following set of tables and graphs measures the quantity and strength of the High Commissioner’s statements on 24 non-democracies, being countries failing to meet the minimal standards of a “Free” democracy as rated by Freedom House, as well as 24 democracies rated “Free” by Freedom House. For each country listed, the tables and graphs show the number of criticisms initiated by High Commissioner Bachelet during her four-year term, as well as our assessment of whether the statement is weak, moderate, or strong, and whether it contains any praise. For the complete data, click here.

Tables of Statements by Michelle Bachelet on Select Countries

Positive Findings

High Commissioner Bachelet was strong in calling out abuses in the following countries:

• Myanmar: Bachelet initiated 17 statements criticizing Myanmar, including 12 that we rated as strong, the most on any country. She initiated five statements prior to the February 2021 coup addressing abuses against the Rohingya community and one statement calling for the release of two Reuters journalists. Following the coup, Bachelet initiated 11 statements, many of which were strong, criticizing crackdowns and violence against protesters as well as violations against the Rohingya.

• Sudan: Bachelet initiated 15 statements on Sudan, most of which we rated as strong or moderate. Five of the statements were initiated between January and July 2019 criticizing the government’s excessive force against protesters. Following the October 2021 coup, she initiated seven statements, mostly moderate and strong. Six of the statements criticized excessive force and other violations by the security forces and the other one was on inter-communal violence in Darfur.

• Nicaragua: Bachelet initiated 12 criticisms of the Nicaraguan regime for its crackdowns on dissent and civil liberties. Most of these we rated as moderate or strong. We note, however, that nine of these were in 2018 and 2019. Since then, however, Bachelet has initiated only one criticism per year on Nicaragua. We note that UN Watch and its director made 22 appeals for Bachelet to speak out on Nicaragua. On 10 occasions, UN Watch urged her to support a UNHRC special session on Nicaragua, but to no avail. We call on the next High Commissioner to be vocal and to speak out for the 170 political prisoners, including former presidential candidates such as Juan Chamorro, Félix Maradiaga, and former ambassador Arturo Cruz.

• Belarus: Since July 2020, a month before fraught presidential elections in Belarus, Bachelet initiated nine statements critical of the Lukashenko government in connection with the election violence. The majority of these statements were either moderate or strong. Her statements focused on violence before and after the last election, crackdowns on protesters, and arbitrary arrests. At the same time, Bachelet failed to issue a single statement on Belarus until just before these elections. UN Watch also made nine appeals since August 2020 urging Bachelet to support a special session on Belarus. She failed, however, to do so. UN Watch especially appealed to Bachelet to bring attention to various Belarussian human rights defenders who were imprisoned, such as Viktor Babariko, Katerina Borisevich, Marina Zolotova, Vitaly Shishov, Andrey Alyaksandrau, Sergei Tikhanovsky, and Andrei Kazimirov. However, only one of the names mentioned by UN Watch, Roman Protasevich, was cited in her statements.

• Ukraine: Bachelet was swift in condemning Russia’s military aggression in Ukraine. Since February 2022, she initiated nine criticisms of Putin’s government, eight on the war itself, and one on Russia’s arrests of anti-war protesters inside Russia. Five of these were strong.

Problematic Findings

• Russia: only 4 statements, none on Vladimir Kara-Murza and other political prisoners. Bachelet initiated only four stand-alone statements on the Putin regime’s human rights violations in Russia. These addressed arbitrary arrests of government critics and anti-war demonstrators, attacks against Jehovah’s Witnesses, and harassment of civil society. Her other eight criticisms of Russia addressed the war in Ukraine. However, Bachelet issued zero statements on Russian political prisoners,[1] saying nothing, for example, on the ongoing arbitrary detention of dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza. Bachelet remained silent despite repeated appeals made to her by human rights groups worldwide.^[2] She was likewise silent about Russia’s arrest and attempted poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny until he was sentenced in February 2021, despite her being urged to speak out by UN Watch in 15 appeals published on Twitter.

• Ukraine: 0 statements on Russia’s aggression until the February 2022 invasion. High Commissioner Bachelet failed to address Russia’s illegal occupation and annexation of the sovereign Ukrainian territory of Crimea, including the transfer of 200,000 Russian nationals to the occupied region, persecution of local Crimean Tatars, and attacks on journalists such as Radio Free Europe’s Vladyslav Yespenko, arrested in March 2021. She also ignored Russia’s violations in the sovereign Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, including arbitrary arrests, politically motivated kidnappings, and torture of detainees. By contrast, governments worldwide such as the U.S., EU, UK, and Canada, as well as human rights organizations such as Civic Solidarity, Freedom House, and Human Rights Watch were vocal about criticizing Russianabuses in Crimea.

• China: 5 on Hong Kong, 1 on COVID-related detention, 0 on everything else in China. Bachelet’s statements on China over four years turned a blind eye to Beijing’s violations against women, children, and migrants, including forced labor which she mentioned once only in passing. She also ignored arbitrary detentions, reprisals against human rights defenders and their families, and widespread violations in Tibet. Bachelet was silent despite credible reports of Beijing’s gross abuses. For example, in July 2018, just before Michelle Bachelet took office, Freedom House described China as the “Global Leader in Political Prisoners.” Likewise, in June 2021, 11 independent UN human rights experts issued a joint statement reporting abuses against political detainees.^[3] Bachelet did not initiate a single statement on the topic. Finally, China is also known to abuse its power at the UN and engage in reprisals against human rights defenders who cooperate with UN mechanisms, as detailed in the Secretary General’s annual reports on reprisals. Several groups, including Human Rights Watch and the Council on Foreign Relations, have reported on China’s attacks on human rights at the UN. On 60 separate occasions, UN Watch and its director called on Bachelet to speak out against China’s abuse of the UN system. Nevertheless, Bachelet was silent.

• Uighurs: 0 statements over four years, except in the last hour of her mandate. On at least 15 separate occasions, UN Watch urged Michelle Bachelet to speak out against China’s persecution of the Uighurs. Yet for nearly the entirety of her term, Bachelet failed to initiate a single stand-alone statement concerning China’s forced detention of more than one million Uighurs. Her silence came despite the issue being repeatedly raised by member states at the UN, including in two joint statements at the Human Rights Council, one on behalf of 22 countries, and another on behalf of 39 countries.^[4] Bachelet’s only statements on the issue were passing, weak references contained in omnibus oral updates to the Council. It was only in the very last hour of her mandate, on August 31, 2022, that Bachelet finally released a long-delayed report on the Uighurs.

• Iran: 0 on oppression of dissidents, forced Hijab law, fomenting terrorism. Bachelet initiated 12 statements on Iran, mostly on executions and excessive force against protesters. Yet she ignored the regime’s grave and widespread discrimination against women, including through its forced Hijab law. While Iran’s attempted kidnapping of exiled Iranian women’s rights activist Masih Alinejad was widely condemned—by U.S. government officials, a coalition of human rights groups, and the Committee to Protect Journalists—Bachelet was, by contrast, silent. Likewise, when renowned novelist Salman Rushdie was stabbed on August 12 in wake of incitement to kill him by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, world leaders were quick to condemn the attack, with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressly calling out Iran’s complicity. Bachelet by contrast was silent. Finally, she never spoke out against the Iranian regime’s malign role in fomenting terrorism and conflict throughout the Middle East, including in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, and Israel, as well as Iran’s repeated incitement to genocide by calling for Israel’s destruction. Both the U.S. and Canada have condemned Iranian sponsorship of terrorism throughout the Middle East. UN Watch and its director made 57 separate appeals for Bachelet to speak out on Iran. Although she did speak out against executions, she ignored the various dissidents still suffering in unjust detention, whom UN Watch brought to her attention.

• Saudi Arabia: 0 on subjugation of women, political prisoners, repression of religious freedom. Bachelet did not initiate a single statement speaking out for women’s rights in Saudi Arabia. She was silent on the regime’s imprisonment and torturing of Saudi women’s rights activists and said nothing about its oppressive and misogynistic male guardianship law. It was not until the second to last week of her term on August 19, 2022, that she initiated a statement on behalf of an imprisoned dissident—to criticize the draconian 34-year sentence handed down to doctoral student Salma Al-Shehab on account of her tweets on political and human rights issues. Bachelet failed to initiate statements for any other dissidents and political prisoners such as Raif Badawi, despite urging by UN Watch. At the same time, Bachelet did initiate two stand-alone statements on Saudi Arabia’s murder of Jamal Khashoggi in its embassy in Turkey, five on Saudi actions in Yemen, and two on mass executions.

• Israel: condemned by Bachelet more times than North Korea, China, and the Taliban. Bachelet applied a double standard against Israel, a tiny democracy that she condemned 14 times, more than any other. By contrast, as shown in the chart of democracies above, she never once criticized Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Sweden, and others. What is more, her criticisms of Israel surpassed her criticisms of such tyrannies as Venezuela, China, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Cuba, Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, and Yemen.

• United States: condemned more times than Venezuela’s Maduro regime. UN Watch and its director had made 27 separate appeals for Bachelet to speak out on human rights abuses in Venezuela and to support the convening of an emergency session. However, Bachelet initiated only seven stand-alone criticisms of Venezuela’s Maduro regime during her four years as High Commissioner. By contrast, during that same period, she initiated 10 criticisms of the United States. Likewise, while Bachelet entered the abortion debate by initiating a statement criticizing the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, she never spoke out on anti-abortion laws in countries like Egypt, El Salvador, Nicaragua, or Senegal, nor did she ever initiate a press release on forced abortions and sterilizations in China and North Korea.

• Cuba: only 1 criticism of police state. Bachelet criticized Cuba only once during her entire four years. This statement came in wake of repeated UN Watch appeals calling out her silence during the historic July 2021 mass protests in Cuba, which called for democracy, freedom, and human dignity. Indeed, during Bachelet’s four years in office, UN Watch made no less than 50 appeals on Twitter for her to speak out against the Havana regime’s gross and systematic abuses, including at least ten appeals for her to support an urgent debate on Cuba by the Human Rights Council. Yet in her entire four-year term, Bachelet issued only a single statement on the Cuban dictatorship. She ignored appeals over four years to raise awareness about the plight of numerous human rights defenders who faced detention, torture, and persecution at the hands of the regime, including people such as Eduardo Cardet, Ángel Moya Acosta, Benito Fojaco, ​​Ariel Ruiz Urquiola, Camila Acosta, José Daniel Ferrer, and Javier Delgado.

• North Korea: criticized as many times as Australia. Bachelet initiated only one criticism of North Korea, one of the worst human rights violators on the planet, and, despite numerous appeals made by UN Watch, also only one statement each on serial abusers such as Burundi, Eritrea, Pakistan, Somalia, and Zimbabwe. Yet this was the same number of criticisms that she initiated against Australia, Spain, and the European Union. While democracies must be held to account, a moral and merits-based approach would demand that the High Commissioner devote more of her office’s limited time and resources to those human rights victims in the world who suffer severe and systematic oppression and who have no recourse to free and fair elections, an independent judiciary, freedom of speech, and other basic institutions of democracy that act as a check and balance to executive power.

• Ignored Antisemitism: In her four years as High Commissioner, Bachelet has never initiated a stand-alone statement against any violent antisemitic attacks that took place worldwide, even though she did, on a number of occasions, speak out on other forms of racism. For example, concerning America, Bachelet initiated three criticisms of the U.S. government for violence against the African American community. However, she never spoke out after the synagogue shootings or hostage-taking in Pittsburgh, San Diego, or Texas.

• Pakistan: only 2 statements. Despite Pakistan being a member state of the UNHRC and therefore obliged to uphold the highest standard of human rights, Bachelet initiated only two statements on this country of 220 million people, where the military exerts enormous influence and intimidates media. She made no statements on Pakistan’s arbitrary arrests, restrictions on civil liberties, persecution of human rights defenders, attacks on journalists, and discrimination and violence against women. UN Watch and its director made appeals in December 2018 and April 2019 for Bachelet to condemn Pakistan’s persecution of religious minorities, such as the Christian Asia Bibi who was on death row for “blasphemy,” but she failed to act.

• Turkey: 0 criticism of human rights abuses in Turkey. High Commissioner Bachelet initiated seven criticisms of the Turkish government, but all were on Turkey’s violations in Syria. None concerned widespread abuses within Turkey, such as restrictions on civil liberties, arbitrary arrests, and attacks on journalists, academics, and human rights defenders. Bachelet likewise failed to mention the names of dissidents persecuted by the Erdogan regime.[5]

[1]  UN Watch urged Bachelet to denounce Russia’s imprisonment of Volodymyr Balukh, Airat Dilmukhametov, Ivan Safronov, Vanessa Kogan, and Margarita Yudina. She failed to speak out. Likewise, UN Watch first appealed to Bachelet to speak out on Alexei Navalny on July 30, 2019, and then again on 13 separate occasions. Only on February 3, 2021 did her office finally make a statement for Navalny. Thereafter, UN Watch and its director made over 20 pleas for Bachelet to demand Navalny’s proper treatment, release, and more recently for Russia to simply disclose his whereabouts, yet she issued no press releases on his behalf.

[2] On April 12, 2022, immediately after Vladimir Kara-Murza was arrested, UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer made the following appeal to Bachelet on Twitter: “We urge you to speak out on behalf of the international community to show solidarity with courageous Russian dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza—who has testified repeatedly at the United Nations—and to demand his immediate release from arbitrary detention.” Many other similar appeals were made to Bachelet, yet to no avail. Likewise, on May 2, 2022, a coalition of 25 human rights groups that co-sponsor the annual Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy, led by UN Watch, appealed to Bachelet to demand the release of Mr. Kara-Murza, along with all other prisoners of conscience jailed for protesting Putin’s war in Ukraine. Bachelet failed to act, issuing no statement or reply to the appeal.  On May 12, 2022, at an urgent session of the Human Rights Council, UN Watch’s director took the floor on behalf of a cross-regional coalition of 35 human rights NGOs and urged Bachelet to speak out for Mr. Kara-Murza; she remained silent. Still, UN Watch continued to campaign: “@MBachelet @UN, do not be silent. Stand with Vladimir. Stand with his wife Evgenia.” (July 11, 2022). UN Watch repeatedly made more such appeals to Bachelet. Regrettably, to no avail.

[3] This followed a December 2020 Joint Statement by UN human rights experts on China’s crackdowns against dissent.

[4] See, for example, the July 2019 Joint Appeal to Michelle Bachelet by 22 Countries concerning abuses by China in Xinjiang; and the October 2020 Joint Statement delivered by Germany on behalf of 39 Countries on China’s abuses in Xinjiang and Hong Kong. Similar joint statements were delivered in 2021 and 2022.

[5] In addition, Bachelet made two statements that addressed Turkey’s obligations to investigate the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, however, both statements were essentially criticisms of the Saudi government, and therefore did not qualify as criticisms of Turkey.

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• March 30, 2019 – Rioters throw stones and explosives at Israeli troops.
• May 12, 2019 – Gazan armed with knife arrested after crossing into Israel.
• June 29, 2019 – Four Palestinians armed with knives detained near Gaza border.
• July 27, 2019 – Rioters hurl explosives and grenades toward border fence during riots.
• August 1, 2019 – Hamas militant killed after crossing border fence armed with AK-47 and grenades; two Palestinians armed with knives, aged 11 and 15, arrested after crossing Gaza border.
• August 11, 2019 – Palestinian killed after shooting at Israeli soldiers at Gaza border fence.
• August 23, 2019 – Palestinian at Gaza border shot after attacking Israeli soldiers with grenades.
• August 30, 2019 – Four Palestinians armed with a grenade and knife caught crossing into Israel.

Ignores crucial evidence and context and applies incorrect legal standard – Bachelet’s statement continues to exclusively apply the domestic policing law enforcement standard, and fails to consider the authority to use force under the Laws of Armed Conflict. Thus, Bachelet claims that demonstrators did not pose “an imminent threat of death or risk of serious injury.” In applying this policing standard, Bachelet ignores evidence that Hamas has used the March of Return as a cover for militant activities intended to harm Israeli soldiers and civilians. Bachelet’s statement also disregards evidence of weapons found among rioters. Furthermore, it ignores that the clashes are occurring at a hostile border between two entities engaged in an armed conflict, and not in the middle of a city like Tel Aviv, Paris or New York where the governing authority has full control and a greater ability to implement preventive measures.
This is a fundamentally flawed approach. As Lt. Col. Geoffrey Korn explained at our March 2019 side event, “In an ongoing armed conflict, if I make a determination that you are a member of the enemy organized armed group, I am not required to wait for you to present an imminent threat to me. The fact that you are a member of that group in that conflict alone provides international legal authority to engage in hostility against you…The suggestion that as matter of law, because there is a law enforcement component to the security operations, it somehow nullifies the conduct of hostilities component is fundamentally flawed.”
Fails to consider risks to Israeli civilian population – Bachelet’s statement contains no discussion or analysis of the risks of death or injury to Israeli civilian communities in close proximity to the Gaza border resulting from the March of Return. This risk can come from infiltration of armed militants across the fence, explosives and shooting attacks, or even from incendiary devices flown over the border.
Bases conclusions on incomplete data – Bachelet claims that “Initial monitoring suggests that [13 Palestinians killed at fence from March 22 to August 2019] were killed in circumstances where there was no threat to life or serious injury, and thus the use of lethal force may have been excessive.” However, the statement provides no basis for this conclusion. Moreover, the extent of the threat can only be ascertained based on the many surrounding circumstances going on at the time, including visibility conditions, the victim’s activity in the moments leading up to being shot, crowd dynamics, proximity to Israeli communities, etc. However, Bachelet does not have access to all of this data, particularly since much of it is classified military data. Likewise, Bachelet’s expression of doubt about reported changes to Israel’s open-fire rules to fire primarily at the ankles, based solely on the number of injuries to the torso and head, fails to take into account the complexity of the situation. Certainly, this ignores the possibility that a rioter engaged in violence could have change position from standing to crouching or lying down just before being shot.
Ignores participation of children in militant activities at the border – Bachelet’s statement treats all children killed or injured at the Gaza border as if they are innocent victims, completely disregarding whether they were actually involved in terrorism at the fence. As Middle East analyst Joe Truzman demonstrated in his presentation at our UN side event on March 18, 2019, many of the children killed at the border were members of terrorist groups and engaged in militant activity at the fence. Since March 22, children have continued to participate in the militant activities and to be exploited by terrorist groups as human shields.

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I urge the UN human rights office & chief Michelle Bachelet to condemn today's murderous attack on Jews praying in a synagogue. Too often, as documented in our recent report, it seems UN human rights bodies see racism everywhere, and antisemitism nowhere. https://t.co/lh6UyrlvUM pic.twitter.com/y7oPuaIDao

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 27, 2018

#####

 
Key Findings of UN Watch’s Report on the United Nations and Antisemitism, 2008 – 2017:

• With deadly attacks against Jews escalating worldwide over the past decade—from Kansas to Copenhagen, Mumbai to Toulouse—the United Nations has a unique role to play in combating antisemitism. Anti-racism is the defining ideology of the United Nations and its human rights mechanisms. Yet all too often, as documented in this report’s comprehensive examination of the actions of key UN officials, agencies and experts over the past decade, it seems that the UN sees racism everywhere, and antisemitism nowhere.

• There are notable exceptions. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, like his predecessors Ban Ki-moon and Kofi Annan, has made a series of positive statements about combating antisemitism. The General Assembly hosted an informal meeting on antisemitism in 2015. The UN’s Holocaust Outreach Program commemorates and teaches about the Holocaust, reaching broad audiences worldwide.

• UNESCO recently released a publication with the OSCE aimed at assisting policymakers in addressing antisemitism through education. Notwithstanding its repeated adoption of one-sided resolutions condemning Israel and downplaying the ancient Jewish heritage of Jerusalem and Hebron, UNESCO also hosted, after an initial postponement, an exhibit on the 3,000-year-old connection of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel.

• Regrettably, however, the exceptions prove the rule. Over a decade when Jews were targeted for slaughter in India, France, Belgium, Denmark and elsewhere—whether in a Jewish school, museum, synagogue or supermarket—the UN’s primary agencies and officials for addressing discrimination have, for the most part, turned a blind eye to antisemitism. UN plenaries like the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council, which enact hundreds of resolutions a year, including on subjects related to racial and religious discrimination, failed to address the threat of antisemitism, other than in a few passing words included in general statements. Until 2010, both the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council adopted annual resolutions focused on the “defamation of Islam and Muslims,” mandating special reports, yet there was never one resolution to address anti-Jewish hatred and violence.

• During the course of his tenure from 2006 to 2016, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued more than 100 condemnations of terror attacks worldwide. When the attack targeted religious worshippers, mosques or Christian clergy, his condemnations included strong language against the targeting of people for their religious beliefs. By contrast, he refrained from employing similarly strong language regarding terrorist attacks against Jewish targets, many of which he did not condemn at all. In a decade marked by shocking antisemitic violence, Mr. Ban was often silent. While he proved quick to condemn an anti-Muslim film or statement by private parties, he failed to address pervasive, state-sanctioned incitement to antisemitism in the Middle East, including Iran’s Holocaust denial, Jewish conspiracy theories, and calls to commit genocide.

• High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, who served from 2008 to 2014, was likewise quick to condemn a film perceived as anti-Muslim, as well as “malicious” cartoons by Charlie Hebdo. Yet in the face of murderous physical attacks against Jews, such as the shooting at a Toulouse Jewish school, Pillay was typically silent. Worse, Pillay and her office repeatedly smeared Jewish organizations as “single-issue lobbyists” for seeking to prevent antisemitism from infecting the UN’s 2009 “Durban II” conference on racism.

• Current High Commissioner Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein has not only turned a blind eye to antisemitic incitement and violent attacks—even though he has addressed incitement against Muslims in Myanmar—but he has repeatedly engaged, as have other UN officials, in what Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt has called softcore Holocaust denial, through a series of statements that seek to de-Judaize the Holocaust.

• The UN Human Rights Council’s Special Rapporteurs on racism and freedom of religion ought to be the first UN experts to speak out against anti-Jewish discrimination and violence. However, as a rule, successive mandate-holders over the past decade have failed to comment on rising antisemitism, including the murderous incitement against Jews in the Arab and Muslim world, or deadly attacks in Europe and elsewhere. By contrast, they did speak out on behalf of other targeted groups.

• Expert bodies like the Human Rights Committee and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), which review country compliance with international treaties, should be affirmatively monitoring state parties for any antisemitic incitement or violence which puts Jews at risk, or infringes their rights to freely practice the Jewish religion. Yet an examination of the Human Rights Committee’s concluding observations for numerous state parties—including Arab and Muslim states where antisemitic incitement is rampant, as well as other states that have witnessed high levels of antisemitic incidents in the last ten years—reveals that antisemitism is of limited concern.

• Similarly, our study of the CERD’s concluding observations for numerous countries—including Argentina, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Sweden, Turkey, the UAE, Ukraine and Venezuela—shows that the 18-member body rarely mentioned violent attacks on Jews or other forms of antisemitism, though it did devote attention to Islamophobia or discrimination against Roma. Moreover, though antisemitic incitement from the Arab and Muslim world has inspired horrific antisemitic attacks worldwide, the CERD addressed hate speech in these countries only when the speech was directed at other groups—but never when the target was Jews.

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GENEVA, August 8, 2018 — In reaction to the news of @MBachelet's nomination as the next @UNHumanRights chief, UN Watch said it had “serious concerns” over her spotty record on supporting human rights in #Cuba, #Nicaragua, and #Venezuelahttps://t.co/g8QU4UgTi2

— UN Watch (@UNWatch) August 8, 2018

• U.S. SPEAKS OUT: In wake of UN Watch’s press release (see below), the U.S. delegation to the UN issued a powerful statement calling on the new UN rights chief to address Cuba and Venezuela. “The UN system has failed to adequately address major human rights crises in Iran, North Korea, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and elsewhere, or stop its chronic, disproportionate obsession with Israel. It is up to Ms. Bachelet to speak out against these failures rather than accept the status quo.”
• MEDIA REPORTS: UN Watch’s statement on Bachelet was quoted by leading Spanish newspapers La Vanguardia and ABC, Fox News, Eurasia Review, CNS News, as well as Diario de Cuba, Martí Noticias and Diario Concepción.
• HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS: The Human Rights Foundation tweeted that it “shares UN Watch’s concern over Bachelet’s fitness to hold the highest UN human rights office, due to her track record cozying up to Latin American dictators.”
Italy’s Matteo Angioli, Secretary of the Global Committee for the Rule of Law and activist with the Non-Violent Radical Party, also posted UN Watch’s statement. Dissident Rosa Maria Paya noted that Cuba and Venezuela praised Bachelet’s appointment.
Human Rights Watch chief Ken Roth initially had only praise for Bachelet. But under pressure after UN Watch reminded him how his own Latin American director had previously slammed Bachelet’s record on both Cuba and Venezuela, Roth reversed course and shared a sharp critique by Cuban dissident Yoani Sanchez. He acknowledged that Bachelet had “downplayed repression by leftist Latin American governments such as Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.”
• INFLUENCERS: Major influencers who shared UN Watch’s Bachelet concerns on social media included fearless Florida congresswoman Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Wall Street Journal editorial board member Mary Anastasia O’Grady, Venezuelan journalist Alberto Rodriguez, Venezuelan author Leonardo Padrón, NYU professor Patricio Navia, Chilean lawyer and ex-presidential candidate José Antonio Kast, Chilean lawyer and politician Tomás Jocelyn-Holt, Chilean activist and lawyer Luis Mariano Rendón, Venezuelan author Karl Krispin and German writer Alex Feuerherdt.

No joke: @UN says @MBachelet's close ties to Maduro & Castro dictatorships is a #good thing—because, as UN rights chief, "the important point is to reach out to all leaders and be able to have a dialogue with them…" All in reaction to UN Watch's release: https://t.co/NRQtd0lG0Q pic.twitter.com/ATwjlfa4hV

— UN Watch (@UNWatch) August 13, 2018

• UN SPOX ON DEFENSIVE: Amid the backlash, UN spokesman Farhan Haq was put on the defensive (video) over Bachelet’s appointment. Asked at his daily press briefing about UN Watch’s concerns over Bachelet’s ties to the Castro and Maduro regimes, Haq stumbled to find a response. Then he settled on portraying her proximity to the human rights abusers as a good thing — because, in her new post as UN rights chief, “the important point is to reach out to all leaders and be able to have a dialogue with them…”

GINEBRA, 8/8/2018 – Frente a noticia de la nominación de @mbachelet para ser Alta Comisionada para los Derechos Humanos de ONU, UN Watch dijo tener “serias preocupaciones” sobre su historial en relación a defender los DDHH en #Cuba, #Nicaragua y #Venezuelahttps://t.co/mQCGOikLXx

— UN Watch en Español (@UNWatch_es) August 9, 2018

The post UN Watch Sparks Firestorm Over Bachelet Ties to Tyrants appeared first on UN Watch.

GENEVA, August 10, 2018 – The non-governmental human rights group UN Watch congratulated Michelle Bachelet on her appointment today as UN human rights chief, but joined Amnesty International, UNA-UK and other NGOs in criticizing the lack of transparency of the rushed process.

In particular, UN Watch regretted that Bachelet has not yet responded to questions that were raised over her spotty record on supporting human rights in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

In a statement released on Wednesday, UN Watch had asked to meet the former Chilean president to obtain clarifications. 

“There’s no question that the former Chilean president is a highly educated and intelligent politician, who also brings important negotiating skills,” said Hillel C. Neuer, executive director of UN Watch.

“But she has a controversial record when it comes to her support for the human rights abusing governments who rule Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, and we need to know how she plans to address these urgent situations.”

Neuer cited the following Bachelet actions that he said raise “troubling questions”:

• 2018 Cuba Visit: Bachelet’s visit to Cuba earlier this year, one of her last trips before leaving office, was strongly criticized by members of her own party and others, especially human rights activists. She met with the last military dictator of the Americas, Gen. Raúl Castro, without seeing any member of Cuba’s peaceful opposition. 

Opposition leader Rosa María Payá asked Bachelet to meet with human rights dissidents during her trip to the island, but that request was completely ignored. “She is rewarding those responsible for the longest dictatorship in the region,” said Payá.

“Her closeness to Havana is marked by an ideological nostalgia that clouds her view and her ability to recognize the lack of rights that mark the lives of Cubans,” said prominent Cuban human rights blogger Yoani Sanchez.

“In each of her two terms,” wrote Sanchez, “Bachelet avoided showing sympathy for the cause of Cuban dissidents and has declined any contact with the countless activists from the island who have visited her country in recent years. From her mouth, there has never been any condemnation of the political repression systematically carried out by Raúl Castro, even when the victims are women.”

• Praised Cuban Dictator: On Fidel Castro’s death, she called him “a leader for dignity and social justice in Cuba and Latin America,” a statement that was sharply criticized by Chilean political leaders across the spectrum, who said it showed insensitivity to victims of Cuban state repression.

• Praised Hugo Chavez: Bachelet eulogized Chavez — whose legacy in Venezuela is mass hunger, jailed opposition leaders and a failed state — for “his most profound love for his people and the challenges of our region to eradicate poverty and generate a better life for everyone and his profound love for Latin America.”

• Refusal to Condemn Maduro, Slammed by HRW:  Bachelet was called out by Human Rights Watch’s Latin America chief in July 2017 for her “serious error” of “failing to characterize the Nicolás Maduro regime as a dictatorship, or at least as a regime that broke the constitutional order,” as affirmed by 20 countries in the OAS. “The most serious thing,” said José Miguel Vivanco, “is that the president [Bachelet] continues to insist that the problem of Venezuela is the lack of dialogue, suggesting that there is a kind of shared responsibility.”

• Quiet on Nicaragua Killings: Over the past months of the Ortega regime’s killing of hundreds of protesters, Bachelet’s twitter account shows not a single tweet mentioning Nicaragua or its victims.

UN Watch expressed regret that none of the above concerns were addressed before her appointment was approved, only two days after her name was put forward by the Secretary-General. 

On process, UN Watch noted the following:

• No Transparency: The appointment was treated as an internal recruitment process, without elements such as a public list of candidates and vision statements, as for the most recent Secretary-General appointment process. Transparency over such an important appointment would have helped to improve public perceptions of the High Commissioner’s office, strengthen Bachelet’s legitimacy and would be in line with the UN’s own best practices. Only one candidate, Nils Melzer, publicly declared his candidacy, and shared his vision for the role.

• Timing: The official process to find the next High Commissioner was triggered less than three months before the mandate begins. Bachelet will have the shortest preparation time in the role’s history.

UN Watch has been a leading voice at the United Nations Human Rights Council for human rights victims in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

The post Questions for new UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet over Cuban & Venezuela policy appeared first on UN Watch.