By Dina Rovner, Legal Advisor at UN Watch

The report released today by Francesca Albanese is presented as an examination of Israel’s “destruction of truth,” but in reality is itself an assault on truth. This latest iteration of the genocide canard advances a self-sealing theory in which interpretations that support the genocide charge are accepted without question, while contrary evidence is dismissed and transformed into proof of “mediacide.” Thus, Israeli evidence that purported journalists belonged to terrorist organizations becomes a “smear.” Evidence that Hamas operated from hospitals becomes “humanitarian camouflage.” Challenges to famine findings become “genocide denial.” Media outlets that report Israeli arguments are accused of amplifying propaganda, while social-media platforms that carry them face suggestions of complicity. Her framework leaves remarkably little room for legitimate scrutiny, competing evidence or reasoned debate.

Central to Albanese’s charge is the unsupported assertion that Israel intentionally targeted Gazan journalists for “murder” in order to “silence Palestinian journalism” (paras. 13, 19). Albanese dismisses as “smear campaigns” (para. 26) Israeli evidence that 170 of the journalists killed in Gaza after October 7, 2023 were Hamas or PIJ combatants, refusing to engage with it. Yet more than 60 of these have already been admitted by Hamas and PIJ as their combatants through martyr notices published by the terrorist groups. Indeed, since June 2025, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has removed 27 “journalists” from its lists of “journalists and media workers killed in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory (IOPT),” after determining that they were Hamas or PIJ combatants.

Journalists admitted by Hamas or PIJ to be combatants include:

• Yahya Omar Abu Manih, eulogized by Hamas as a “martyred field commander.”
• Ahmed Abu Mahti, eulogized by Hamas as a squad leader in Hamas’ Fawzi Abu Qara (al-Khulafa) Battalion in the Northern Brigade.
• Ahmed Al-Helou, eulogized by Hamas as a “mujahid” in the Northern Khan Younis Brigade.
• Assem Adli Ahmed Al-Barsh, eulogized by Hamas as a Qassam Brigades group commander in the Northern Brigade’s Western Battalion.
• Amin Fathi Hamdan, eulogized by Hamas as a platoon commander
• Mohamed Nabil Al-Zaq, confirmed by PIJ as a commander and seen in a PIJ combat training video.
• Mahmoud Abu Shirby, eulogized by PIJ as a commander.
• Saeed Abu Hassanin, admitted by Hamas as a commander.
• Mohamed Jarghoun, eulogized by Hamas as a “Qassami mujahid martyr.”
• Ahmed Abu Eisha, eulogized by PIJ as a platoon commander.
• Mohamed Skheil, eulogized by PIJ as a commander killed inside the Shifa Hospital.
• Tarek Skheil, eulogized by PIJ as a commander who posed as a “journalist” and used Shifa Hospital as a base. 

The fact that even Hamas and PIJ contradict one of Albanese’s principal accusations is emblematic of the report’s broader deficiencies. 

Albanese claims to expose how “the destruction of truth has become integral to the destruction of a people.” Yet, as the following sections demonstrate, her report substitutes selective evidence, unsupported inferences and distorted legal analysis for rigorous fact-finding. Far from exposing an “assault on truth,” it perpetuates one—under the imprimatur of the United Nations. 

1. Genocide Assumed, Not Proven 

Albanese’s analysis begins with the conclusion it purports to prove. She refers to Israel’s “genocidal destruction” and describes the current hostilities as “the genocidal phase” of Israel’s “long colonial project” (para. 1). Later in the report, she describes the conflict as the “ongoing genocide in Palestine” (paras. 41, 91) and as established fact, referring to “the genocide” and Israel’s  “genocidal campaign” (paras. 28, 42, 64, 70, 81). In circular fashion, she then presents Israel’s alleged targeting of journalists, which she terms “mediacide,” as further evidence of the premise she has already assumed, declaring it “probative of genocidal intent” (para. 41).

Even Albanese’s own authorities undermine her attempt to infer genocidal intent from the alleged systematic killing of journalists. In paragraph 9, she claims that “systematically killing those who document atrocities” may be evidence of an intent to destroy the protected group, citing Bosnia v. Serbia (at para. 373) and Croatia v. Serbia (at para. 148). Yet neither cited passage addresses the killing of journalists or witnesses, much less establishes that such conduct is evidence of genocidal intent. Instead, both establish the stringent standard for inferring genocidal intent from a pattern of conduct under which genocidal intent must be “the only inference that could reasonably be drawn from the acts in question.” 

Moreover, in paragraph 89, she herself offers a different explanation for the same alleged conduct—claiming that Israel targeted journalists “to conceal” alleged “mass atrocities” and “also to erode the very possibility of documenting them.” An alleged intent to conceal atrocities or suppress their documentation is not the specific intent to destroy a protected group required for genocide. Yet in paragraph 91, she recasts Israel’s alleged targeting of journalists as “intrinsic to the ongoing genocide.” Albanese neither establishes the specific genocidal intent required under international law nor explains how her allegations satisfy the stringent ICJ standard she herself invokes.   

2. “Mediacide”: An Invented Concept Presented as Proof of Genocide 

“Mediacide” is not a recognized international crime or established legal category. Yet Albanese uses this invented concept to link fundamentally different forms of conduct to genocide. In paragraph 90, she describes “mediacide” as a “single, integrated phenomenon” that  encompasses the alleged targeting of Palestinian journalists, Israeli media coverage, and the reporting practices of Western media and digital platforms. In paragraph 91, she declares these phenomena “intrinsic to the ongoing genocide,” without establishing how they demonstrate the specific intent to destroy a protected group required under international law.

Moreover, Albanese stretches “mediacide” to cover almost anything that affects the information environment—from the alleged killing of journalists and destruction of media infrastructure to Israeli government advertising, television commentary, Western media coverage and social-media moderation. These are fundamentally different acts, governed by different legal standards. Grouping them together under a single label does not turn them into a single legal wrong, much less evidence of genocide.

3. Combatants Recast as Journalists 

Albanese misrepresents international humanitarian law when she sweepingly claims in paragraph 7 that “[j]ournalists in armed conflict are civilians, protected unless they directly participate in hostilities,” citing Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions and ICRC Rule 34. In paragraph 15 she reiterates that the “civilian status” of journalists is “presumed,” citing also the ICRC’s Interpretive Guidance. But that is only part of the story. Albanese omits that the same ICRC guidance she cites also recognizes that members of an organized armed group whose “continuous combat function” involves the preparation, execution or command of military operations do not qualify as civilians at all—even when they are not carrying out a particular attack. A Hamas or PIJ fighter or commander does not suddenly benefit from civilian status just because they simultaneously work as a journalist.

Albanese compounds this selective presentation of the law by dismissing evidence of journalists’ military roles. At the outset, she characterizes allegations of terrorist affiliation as journalists being “smeared” while “documenting the destruction of their own society” (para. 3(a)), and in paragraph 7 warns that “mischaracterizing journalists as ‘terrorists’ or combatants cannot negate” their protection. In fact, the opposite applies here: mischaracterizing a combatant as a journalist does not transform him into a protected civilian. 

As discussed above, Albanese’s blanket dismissal of Israeli evidence as “undisclosed or discredited” is contradicted by Hamas and PIJ’s own identification of individuals listed as journalists as their combatants, as well as CPJ’s subsequent removal of 27 names from its database after determining that they were Hamas or PIJ combatants. CPJ expressly condemned “the misrepresentation of combatants as journalists or media workers.” The problem is not new. During the 2014 Gaza conflict, UNESCO withdrew its condemnation of the killing of Abdullah Murtaja as a journalist after evidence emerged that he was a member of Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades. UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova expressly deplored “attempts to instrumentalize the profession of journalists by combatants.” 

4. Journalist Deaths Do Not Prove Israel Targeted Journalists 

Albanese repeatedly treats the killing of journalists as evidence that Israel deliberately targeted them because of their work. In paragraph 3(a), she describes the “systematic targeting” of Palestinian journalists and claims that it “has progressively deprived the world of its primary witnesses” of Israel’s conduct. But these are distinct propositions. The fact that a journalist was killed in an Israeli strike does not establish that the journalist was deliberately targeted, much less that the purpose was to suppress reporting.

Albanese makes a similar leap in claiming that the destruction of more than 150 journalists’ homes “signals an intent to persecute the media sector” (para. 18). But a tally of destroyed homes does not establish that they were deliberately targeted because of their connection to journalists. 

5. Destroyed Media Buildings: Motive Assumed Without Evidence 

A media facility can become a military objective if, in the circumstances of the particular case, its nature, location, purpose or use makes an effective contribution to military action and its destruction, capture or neutralization offers a definite military advantage.  

Albanese dispenses with that inquiry. In paragraph 35, she cites the destruction of Palestine Tower, damage to approximately 50 media offices and the destruction of Press House and declares that the “early and intense targeting of media institutions likely indicates an explicit intention to suppress reporting from the ground.” Yet Albanese simply assumes that the media offices were the intended targets and that suppressing reporting was the objective, without offering evidence for either conclusion.  

Palestine Tower illustrates the speculation underlying Albanese’s conclusion. Israel gave an entirely different explanation at the time for the strike, identifying the target as “military infrastructure used by senior Hamas terrorist operatives for carrying out terrorist activity.” Reporting from the time also identified Hamas offices in the tower. Albanese does not address this evidence. Nor does she offer evidence to support her claim that Israel’s actual objective was to silence journalists. The intelligence and contemporaneous targeting assessments that would shed light on the strike’s actual purpose are not publicly available, and Albanese offers no indication that she reviewed them. Yet she attributes to Israel a motive she cannot substantiate.   

The Press House example fares no better. Publicly available information does not establish precisely how or why the building was destroyed. Yet Albanese treats its destruction as evidence of an Israeli campaign to suppress journalism, again substituting speculation for evidence.  

6. Hamas Erased From Gaza’s “Information Environment” 

Albanese claims to analyze Israel’s war “on and through the media” (para. 1), which she characterizes as Israel’s “destruction of truth” (summary), while effectively excluding Hamas from her analytical framework. She focuses instead on Israel’s alleged targeting of journalists, its “architecture of information control,” and the global media’s amplification of Israeli narratives (para. 3(b)). Yet Hamas has controlled Gaza since 2007 and exercises coercive power over the environment in which Palestinian journalists operate.

Hamas’s repression of journalists is well documented. In 2025, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported that Hamas violations against journalists during the war were “vastly underreported.” The Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate told CPJ that journalists faced threats, interrogations, beatings, arrests, publication bans, interference with content and surveillance, and that many practiced self-censorship to avoid retaliation. Journalists described being beaten and threatened by Hamas security forces and prevented from covering anti-Hamas protests. This predates the current war. During the 2014 Gaza conflict, the Foreign Press Association protested Hamas’s threats and pressure against foreign journalists, reporting that journalists had been “harassed, threatened or questioned” over their reporting. Correspondents, including Italian journalist Gabriel Barbati and Polish journalist Wojciech Cegielski reported on Hamas violations against civilians during the 2014 war only after leaving Gaza. 

Although Albanese briefly acknowledges that Hamas has threatened journalists covering protests against it (para. 16), this fact disappears from her analysis of the “destruction of truth” within Gaza. Instead, she portrays Palestinian journalists as continuing  “to bear witness” despite “bombardment, displacement, hunger, and exhaustion,” and declares that “every image, fragment of video and testimony” sent from Gaza “stands as an act of resistance against colonial erasure” (para. 5). By scrutinizing purported Israeli influence over reporting while failing to incorporate Hamas’s documented control, intimidation and censorship of journalists into her analysis, Albanese presents a fundamentally distorted account of the information environment she claims to examine.

7. A Double Standard for Evidence: Contrary Evidence Becomes “Disinformation” 

Albanese repeatedly brands information that contradicts her narrative as “disinformation,” “denial” or “humanitarian camouflage,” while presenting her own disputed and unverified claims as fact. In paragraph 60, she describes challenges to famine warnings and even “questioning the reliability of humanitarian assessments” as “denial.” In paragraphs 69–70, she attacks media outlets for reporting Israeli arguments concerning evacuation orders, human shields and the military use of civilian facilities, dismissing these arguments as “humanitarian camouflage.” She likewise describes claims that Hamas operates from hospitals and other civilian sites as “unverified.”

Yet there were ample grounds to question the famine assessments. In March 2024, the IPC projected that famine was imminent in northern Gaza. Three months later, its Famine Review Committee concluded that the available evidence did not indicate that famine was occurring, while acknowledging major gaps in the evidence on food consumption, nutrition and mortality and a “very high level of uncertainty.” 

Even the IPC’s August 2025 famine finding was highly contested on methodological grounds. The Famine Review Committee acknowledged limitations in the malnutrition data and the absence of direct evidence of nutrition-related mortality, while critics challenged the data, thresholds and assumptions used to reach the finding. 

Albanese applies the same tactic to UNRWA. She condemns the “amplification of unsubstantiated allegations” against the agency (para. 68), yet the United Nations’ own Office of Internal Oversight Services found evidence indicating that nine UNRWA employees may have participated in the October 7 attacks, and UNRWA terminated them. 

In paragraph 68, Albanese refers to “unverified or false Israeli claims” that Hamas operates from hospitals and other civilian sites. Yet the evidence concerning Al-Shifa alone is substantial. The U.S. intelligence community assessed with “high confidence” that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad used Al-Shifa and sites beneath it for command infrastructure, command-and-control activities, weapons storage and holding hostages. Israeli forces also uncovered a tunnel network and weapons at the hospital. Released hostages testified that they had been held or taken to hospitals, while security-camera footage showed armed Hamas terrorists bringing two October 7 hostages into Al-Shifa.  

Albanese repeatedly criticizes media outlets for what she considers inadequate verification of Israeli claims, yet fails to apply the same scrutiny to evidence supporting her own conclusions. This selective treatment of evidence is particularly troubling because the Code of Conduct requires Special Procedures mandate holders to rely on “objective, reliable information” from “relevant credible sources,” to “duly cross-check” information to the best extent possible, and to act with “impartiality” and “even-handedness.”  

Her treatment of evidence falls short of these standards. In the introduction, Albanese quotes an alleged Israeli soldier as saying, “Whoever writes an article or works on a laptop is like someone carrying a Kalashnikov and attacking us” (para. 3(a)). Her only source is a submission by Addameer. She does not identify the soldier, provide the circumstances of the statement or cite any corroborating evidence. Even if authentic, the statement is anecdotal. The views of an unidentified soldier cannot establish IDF policy or prove that Israel targets journalists because of their work. Yet Albanese places the quotation immediately after alleging that Israel systematically kills and intimidates journalists to suppress documentation of its actions.

The same double standard appears in her treatment of Palestinian sources. Albanese describes Palestinian journalists as the world’s “primary witnesses” to the “destruction of their own society” (para. 3(a)) and declares that “every image, fragment of video and testimony” sent from Palestinian territory is an “act of resistance against colonial erasure” (para. 5). These sweeping assertions presume the reliability of Palestinian-produced material. She does not explain how such material is verified, distinguish verified evidence from unverified claims, or acknowledge that Palestinian sources may also require corroboration. 

This is consistent with her broader record. As UN Watch has documented, Albanese has repeatedly amplified false or unverified claims against Israel, including claims originating with Hamas-controlled authorities, in one case even admitting that she did so to be “provocative.” In May 2025, she urged the media to stop identifying Gaza casualty figures as coming from the Hamas-run Ministry of Health and instead report the figures simply as people “Israel killed.” 

Albanese may disagree with evidence that challenges her conclusions. But dismissing contrary evidence as “denial,” “propaganda” or “humanitarian camouflage,” while accepting claims that support her narrative without comparable scrutiny, is not impartial fact-finding. It is selective treatment of evidence designed to reinforce a predetermined conclusion. 

8. Western Media Condemned for Reporting Israel’s Side 

In a distortion of ordinary journalism, Albanese attacks major Western media outlets, including BBC, CNN, and The New York Times for reporting Israeli claims and arguments as though reporting them amounts to endorsing them. Her targets are particularly striking: these same outlets have published extensive reporting highly critical of Israel and its conduct in Gaza. Yet Albanese accuses them of amplifying Israeli “humanitarian camouflage,” including claims concerning evacuation orders, human shields and Hamas’s use of civilian facilities (paras. 69–70), and charges them with reproducing narratives that “obscure, justify or legitimize atrocity crimes while marginalizing Palestinian voices, evidence and international law” (para. 90).  

In one example, Albanese says Western media “frequently reproduced” Israel’s portrayal of evacuation orders and safe zones as measures to protect civilians “without challenging it” (para. 69). Her supporting footnote cites an April 2024 New York Times report on preparations for an Israeli operation in Rafah. Yet that article did not simply reproduce Israel’s position. It reported that Israel planned to relocate civilians to an expanded humanitarian zone, but also noted that more than one million Palestinians were sheltering in Rafah and that the proposed zone was already overflowing and lacked adequate clean water and sanitation. It quoted a Palestinian former official asking, “Where do these million people go?” and reported U.S. and U.N. concerns about protecting civilians. Far from supporting Albanese’s accusation, the New York Times article she cites directly contradicts it.  

The same problem appears in her treatment of Hamas’s use of hospitals. Albanese complains that “unverified claims that Hamas operates from hospitals and other civilian sites” lent credibility to narratives justifying attacks on medical facilities (para. 70). But reporting an allegation, identifying its source and examining the evidence is not the same as adopting the allegation as fact. CNN, for example, repeatedly attributed the claims to Israel, reported Hamas’s denials and distinguished what it could independently verify from what it could not. After visiting Al-Shifa, CNN explicitly told viewers that what it had seen was “not proof of a Hamas command center,” while reporting the evidence presented by Israel and the competing claims about what it showed. Albanese’s characterization therefore obscures the distinction between reporting a contested claim and endorsing it.

In addressing the question of “human shield,” Albanese notes that the New York Times referred to “human shields” 176 times and the BBC 81 times, presenting the frequency itself as evidence that Western media adopted an Israeli “framing” of civilian deaths (para. 70). But counting the words proves nothing. Albanese does not show whether the references were allegations attributed to Israel, findings reported from other sources, statements challenged by the outlet, or conclusions supported by evidence. Nor does she establish that the underlying allegation was false. 

9. Stretching the Law to Manufacture Liability 

Albanese repeatedly invokes international criminal law to transform speech, journalism and commercial activity by private actors into components of genocide. But the authorities she cites do not support the conclusions she draws from them.

Her reliance on the Rwanda “Media Case,” Prosecutor v. Nahimana, is one example. Albanese claims that statements by Israeli presenters and commentators amount to direct and public incitement to genocide and says that their being “unchallenged and unrepudiated” engages the responsibility of the media organizations themselves (paras. 61-62). But Nahimana does not establish such a sweeping rule. The Appeals Chamber stressed that the specific crime requires a direct public appeal to commit genocide, made with the intent to incite genocide. It expressly distinguished such incitement from hate speech and incitement to violence, holding that speech must amount to more than a “vague or indirect suggestion.” The tribunal examined the specific broadcasts, the intent behind them and the individual defendants’ responsibility for their dissemination. 

The facts of Nahimana also bear little resemblance to Albanese’s allegations against Israeli media. The case concerned RTLM broadcasts that directly incited the killing of Tutsis during the Rwandan genocide. Albanese, by contrast, relies on a handful of selected statements by Israeli presenters and commentators, without adequately examining their context, meaning or the intent of the speakers. Instead, she characterizes them as direct and public incitement to genocide and invokes Nahimana to suggest that media organizations bear responsibility for statements left “unchallenged and unrepudiated” (paras. 61-62). But the judgment provides no basis for drawing such sweeping conclusions from isolated statements without establishing the required elements of the crime.  

Albanese makes the same legal leap when accusing social-media companies of potential complicity in international crimes. She says Google and X accepted Israeli government advertising that disputed famine claims and other allegations against Israel (paras. 50, 85). From there, she jumps to the possibility of criminal complicity (para. 88), citing Furundžija, a war-crimes judgment from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

But Furundžija does not establish criminal liability merely for accepting payment to publish an advertisement. It requires assistance that had a “substantial effect” on the commission of a crime, together with knowledge that the assistance facilitated the crime. Albanese establishes neither. She identifies no international crime that was substantially assisted by a Google or X advertisement, no evidence that carrying the advertisement facilitated such a crime and no evidence that the platforms accepted it knowing that it would do so.

The post Legal Analysis of Francesca Albanese’s October 2026 Report to the General Assembly appeared first on UN Watch.

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Video Transcript:

UNHRC President: “Excellencies, distinguished colleagues, I hereby declare open the Human Rights Council. We will begin the high-level panel discussion of the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training.

I give the floor to United Nations Watch.”

Hillel Neuer: “Today’s panel asks how the United Nations can advance human rights education for children and youth.

Surely, the first principle must be: “Do no harm.”

Yesterday, UN Watch released its report card on UNRWA reform, testing the agency’s claims against the evidence.

UNRWA says it fulfilled 41 of the 50 reforms recommended by the Colonna Review.

But what is the reality in UNRWA’s classrooms?

According to a December 8^th, 2025 report in the New York Times, 24 employees at 24 different UNRWA schools, mostly principals and deputy principals, were Hamas or Islamic Jihad terrorists.

We ask: Why for 27 years did UNRWA employ Suhail al-Hindi as school principal and teachers’ union chief while he openly sat on the Hamas Politburo with Yahya Sinwar?

Why was he allowed to block Holocaust education?

Why did UNRWA employee Fateh Sharif serve as a school principal and teachers’ union chief while he was also the Hamas commander in Lebanon?

Why did the UN honor UNRWA principal Imad al-Samhouri at its solemn memorial ceremony when he was a Hamas commander sworn to jihad?

Now, the UN can pretend they didn’t know, but his social media is full of photos of him bringing Hamas chiefs into UNRWA schools.

And so we ask the panel: Is this human rights education?

Will the UN and this Council demand an investigation into the UNRWA leaders who oversaw the hiring of terrorist commanders to run the schools and brainwash generations of Palestinians with incitement, hate, racism and holy war?

We ask: Who will be held accountable?

I thank you.”

The post Hillel Neuer confronts a UN Human Rights Council panel on education over UNRWA’s employment of terrorist leaders as school principals appeared first on UN Watch.

Sidoti is one of three members of the UN’s Commission of Inquiry established in May 2021 to investigate Israel. He previously served as Australian Human Rights Commissioner from 1995 to 2000 and has held various human rights roles at the United Nations.

Cox served in the U.S. Army for 22 years, including as a military prosecutor and Chief of International and Operational Law for Regional Command-East. He also taught international law at Cornell Law School from 2019 to 2026.

Below are key excerpts from their debate, addressing the legal standard for genocide, the Commission’s investigative methods, military operations in Gaza and the evidence underlying its conclusions.

The Standard for Establishing Genocidal Intent 

Sidoti: “The test of inference [to establish genocidal intent] is a very, very high test. According to the International Court of Justice, to form a conclusion that the purpose is genocidal on the basis of inference requires that inference be the only reasonable inference available. That’s a really high test. It’s a test, in fact, that in my opinion is higher than the criminal standard of beyond reasonable doubt.”

Sidoti: “If we accept that the goal of the Israeli authorities in Gaza has been the destruction of Hamas, that does not preclude the possibility of genocide being the strategy by which that goal is going to be attained, and that is an issue. The fighting, the strategy, can be undertaken in such a way, in our view of the law, that it can coexist with the goal of eliminating Hamas.”

Sidoti: “The evidentiary standard is the standard that is in the procedures for all of the UN Human Rights Council investigative bodies… It is reasonable grounds to believe or to conclude… as Brian has rightly said in some of his writings, it’s not a high standard. It’s not beyond reasonable doubt. It’s not the balance of probabilities, although it probably comes close to that… [The standard of proof of reasonable grounds in the Commission’s terms of reference] honestly, that definition, which is in the OHCHR manual, is gobbledygook.”

Commission Infers Intent Solely from the Results of Attacks

Cox: “Going back to the Rome Statute as a template, as an example, intentionally directing an attack against civilian population or against a civilian object, it’s possible to infer intent, but it’s almost it is extraordinarily difficult to infer what the intent and the knowledge was after an attack from just looking at the effects of an attack.”

Sidoti: “It is a strategy of total destruction. Now, it may be that it is being done with the goal of destroying Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, but the strategy has been from the beginning a strategy of total destruction… Hospitals, in their entirety, have been destroyed.”

Sidoti: Israel’s Non-Cooperation Increased Commission’s Reliance on Inference 

Sidoti: “Israeli authorities do not cooperate with our commission in any way… it does make the job more difficult, and it pushes us back to relying more on inference than on other factors.” 

Sidoti: “We Are Not a Court”

Sidoti: “We Are Not a Court”

Sidoti: “We are not a court. We are not a court. We’re not even prosecutors. We are an investigative body, and we produce the conclusions of our investigation based on the standard of reasonable grounds to conclude.”

Sidoti: “We’re not a court, and I keep on saying this: we’re not a court. We don’t operate on the basis of criminal standards, of evidence and proof. We’re an investigative body, so it’s different.”

The Commission’s Unnamed Military Expert 

Sidoti: “We have a full-time military expert on our staff who has, I think, around about 20 years of active military service in an armed force before working in the international courts in The Hague before coming to us… We do not give out the names of any of our staff for obvious reasons. I’m responsible. I’m responsible. The other commissioners are responsible, and we will not expose our staff to risk, including from your government.”

Cox: “So, the person has served in a military, somebody’s military. I have no idea what type of experience they have, what type of biases they have, what gaps in knowledge they have… we can’t tell precisely how the military expert influences the commission’s work because we have no idea who he or she is.”

Cox: Selective Use of Israeli Leaders’ Statements 

Cox: “[The Commission has] taken snippets of statements from elected officials to support the inference that the goal of the combat military operations is to destroy the Palestinian population in whole or in part, as such, while ignoring the actual stated intent that has been consistent since the very beginning: to repatriate all hostages and to end the enduring security threat posed by Hamas. That is not genocide. That is war.”

Sidoti: “We did, in fact, provide context for one of the most serious of Netanyahu’s comments and talked about how he qualified what he said later in the same statement. But it seemed to us that his qualification was not convincing, shall we say, in relation to the statement that preceded it, because the actions of the Israeli military was very much in relation to the first one.”

Sidoti: Commission Did Not Independently Establish Civilian Death Toll   

Sidoti: “No, we didn’t [independently establish the number of civilians killed], because we don’t have that information, nor did we establish that the numbers that the IDF claimed were militants were accurate as well. So we literally do not know, nor does anybody else know, including the IDF, how many militants were there.”

Sidoti: Gazans Had Nowhere to Flee; Israel Should Have Taken Them In

Sidoti: “The situation in Gaza is different from all of those situations [like Russian-Ukraine] because the people had nowhere to go. The fact that Egypt is refusing to admit them, it is no more relevant than the fact. In fact, less relevant than the fact that Israel is refusing to admit them. They had, they were prevented from going into Egypt, and they were prevented from going into Israel, and so unlike the Rohingya and the Ukrainians and the Sudanese and the Syrians who fled in their millions into Turkey, they had nowhere to go.”

Sidoti: “One of the significantly relevant factors is the inability of the people to escape from a military strategy of total destruction, and that is directly connected with the issue of genocidal purpose.”

Cox: The Military Rationale for 2,000-Pound Bombs 

Cox: “What the Commission fails to do, just like many NGOs who also operate in the space fail to do, is they fail to acknowledge and account for mitigation techniques that can be utilized by militaries that do use explosive weapons in populated areas… they’re using a 2000 pound bomb because that’s the highest yield that we have for conventional weapons, typically, and they’re trying to get to a bunker, typically, or a tunnel underneath the ground. They delay the fuse. And it does two things: it directs the effects of ammunition against the target, but more importantly, for our purposes, it mitigates the risk of harm to civilians. I see that in almost every single photo or video that comes out of Gaza, and if you know what you’re looking for, you’ll see it too.”

Cox: Commission Fails to Properly Apply International Humanitarian Law  

Cox: “what I find as I read the UN Commission of Inquiry’s work is that it fails to articulate an identifiable formulation of specific rules of the law of armed conflict…” 

Cox: “These rules have content, and if you don’t include the content, then you’ve lost all context for whether these rules have been complied with … that starts by formulating and articulating the rules, applying the facts to the actual doctrine and reaching conclusions. If you don’t do that, you’re not actually assessing where the law of armed conflict is complied with. You’re just blowing smoke.” 

Sidoti Struggles to Explain Commission’s Fertility Clinic Finding 

Sidoti: “I can’t give you [a] detailed response because I’ve not looked at this now for two years, that one on the 5000 or whatever… So I said that the tank crew didn’t know [it was a fertility clinic], and we don’t know what the tank crew knew… I’m stumbling, and I know that I shouldn’t be stumbling in front of this particular audience…”

Audience member: “why was your report wrong to the General Assembly, or was your report wrong to the Human Rights Council? Same attack, two methods.” 

Sidoti: “I have no recollection of saying. Well, I have no recollection… I have no recollection of ever saying it to them.”

For reference, the Commission’s report to the UNGA in September 2024 attributed the destruction of the Basmah clinic to an Israeli air strike, while Sidoti stated at a UNHRC press conference in March 2025 that it was caused by an Israeli tank shell.

Report to the GA (A/79/232) (September 11, 2024): “The Basmah in vitro fertilization centre, the largest fertility clinic in Gaza, was the direct target of air strikes in December 2023 that reportedly resulted in the destruction of approximately 3,000 embryos.”

Sidoti at HRC Press Conference (March 13, 2025): “There is a question about whether those who were firing the tank shell, because our conclusion is that it was destroyed by a tank shell, knew at the time that it was a fertility clinic”

The post UN Commission of Inquiry Member Chris Sidoti Challenged on Gaza Genocide Findings in Melbourne Debate appeared first on UN Watch.

In addition, following are essential sources on Navi Pillay’s troubling record:

• Pillay’s Complicity With Genocide: A UN whistleblower accused Navi Pillay of being “complicit in genocide.” Emma Reilly, a human rights lawyer who worked for Navi Pillay, alleges that under her leadership the UN human rights office handed dissidents’ names to China—including Uyghurs.

• Report: Navi Pillay Turned Blind Eye to World’s Worst Abusers: In an major study published in 2011 while Navi Pillay served as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN Watch examined Pillay’s record in the first two years she served as UN human rights chief. UN Watch found that Pillay turned a blind eye to most of the world’s worst abusers, being completely silent on abuses in Cuba, North Korea, Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Belarus, Syria, and 27 other countries rated “Not Free” by Freedom House. During the first two years of her tenure, Pillay issued 21 statements on countries in the Middle East and North Africa. However, of these, 9 were on Israel, the only democracy in the region.

• Exposing UN Pillay Commission’s Targeting of Israel: In wake of the 11-day Hamas-Israel war of May 2021, the Palestinians and Pakistan, acting on behalf of the Islamic group of states, initiated an emergency session of the U.N. Human Rights Council and succeeded in creating yet another Commission of Inquiry targeting Israel and incentivizing Hamas. Whereas all past inquiries on Israel lasted for about a year, this one is perpetual—it goes on forever. UN rules require that commissioners be impartial. Pillay is the opposite. On repeated occasions, Pillay has publicly accused Israel of being an Apartheid state. She has even signed petitions lobbying governments to “Sanction apartheid Israel.” Navi Pillay was appointed to ensure a guilty verdict against Israel, to label it an Apartheid state with the UN’s imprimatur. In July 2025, Pillay resigned as Chair of the commission to avoid potential U.S. sanctions.

• Legal Brief on Pillay’s Bias, Call to Resign: In February 2022,UN Watch submitted a 30-page legal brief to the United Nations detailing how Navi Pillay violated UN rules by failing to disclose numerous of her prior statements that directly prejudge the matters before the inquiry, and calling on her to resign or recuse herself. As the brief demonstrated, Pillay lacked the impartiality required under UN guidelines due to a long history of public statements and actions pre-judging Israel.

• Nobel Hypocrisy—Pillay Boycotted Ceremony for Liu Xiaobo: When jailed human rights hero Liu Xiaobo was given the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, Foreign Policy reported that Pillay gave in to Chinese pressure and declined an invitation to attend the Oslo ceremony, falsely claiming that she needed to be at a low-level Geneva event — one to which she didn’t bother to show in other years.  Then she added to the dissembling by saying she was never invited.

• 40 NGOs Urge U.N. Rights Chief to Attend Oslo Nobel Ceremony and Show Support for Chinese Dissident: An international coalition of 40 human rights and non-governmental organizations appealed today to U.N. rights chief Navi Pillay to reverse her decision to skip Friday’s Nobel award ceremony for imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. “We urge the High Commissioner to go to Oslo, attend the award ceremony, and convene a press conference that will spotlight the plight of the 1.3 billion Chinese citizens who are systematically denied the basic guarantees of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” said the statement.

• Ignored Iran: Ms. Pillay failed to issue any public statement in response to the well-documented violence against demonstrators in Iran following the June 2009 presidential elections. Her first comment appeared three months after initial reports and video evidence of government-backed paramilitary forces arbitrarily arresting, beating and killing protestors were released. Her welcome call on the Iranian government to “release those detained for peaceful protest, to investigate reports of their ill-treatment, and to ensure respect for human rights” was made only as part of her traditional opening speech at the UN Human Rights Council session in September 2009. She did not give a press conference and chose not to issue a dedicated statement on the matter.

• Endorses Arab-Islamic Assault on Israel: Contrary to the principled statements made by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon an her predecessor, Louise Arbour, Pillay has vocally supported the dictator-dominated UN Human Rights Council’s policy of maintaining a permanent agenda item against Israel — alone of all 193 member states — at every council session.

• Experts Scrutinized Pillay’s Biased Report: In 2022, as the United Nations in Geneva debated the Pillay Report — which turns a blind eye to Palestinian terrorism and embraces the Hamas narrative that Israel is the root cause of all conflict — UN Watch hosted an official UN Side Event, bringing together a panel of renowned experts to challenge the controversial new document. Speakers included Colonel Richard Kemp, Lieutenant Colonel Geoffrey Corn, Israeli Arab human rights activist Yoseph Haddad, human rights lawyer Anne Herzberg, South African attorney Olga Meshoe Washington, and former Member of Knesset Einat Wilf.

• UN Watch’s 2010 Letter to Pillay on Antisemitism and Double Standards: In an April 27, 2010 letter, UN Watch challenged Pillay’s defense of the Human Rights Council’s permanent agenda item targeting Israel and demanded the removal of antisemitic texts from the UN website. The letter documented how her office censored criticism of repressive regimes while publishing allegations that Israeli doctors stole Palestinian organs and that “Jews everywhere” were complicit in a Holocaust against Palestinians.

• Video: Why the UN’s Navi Pillay Commission Lacks Any Credibility

• Video: Hillel Neuer Confronts Pillay in UN Debate

The post Documents: Navi Pillay’s Extreme Bias & Complicity With Genocide appeared first on UN Watch.

“We are shocked that the Nobel committee honored Navi Pillay. Her troubling record on antisemitism and gross breach of ethics in presiding over a notorious UN commission utterly disqualifies her from such an award. The Nobel Peace Prize should uphold universal human rights and reject antisemitism unequivocally. Honoring Pillay without confronting this record undermines those principles and risks rewarding prejudice rather than advancing peace.”

“In July 2021, Ms. Pillay accepted to chair a Pakistani-sponsored UN Commission of Inquiry into alleged Israeli crimes. The rules of due process require that fact-finders in the human rights field be impartial. Yet prior to accepting this post, Pillay had publicly pronounced herself, in extreme terms, on the very issues that her inquiry is mandated to investigate. In June 2020, she signed a manifesto calling on governments to “Sanction Apartheid Israel.” In June 2021, a month before heading the inquiry, Pillay wrote a letter to President Biden calling to punish Israel for the May 2021 war with Hamas. She has made many more prior prejudicial pronouncements.” (See UN Watch’s Request for Navi Pillay to Recuse Herself For Bias or the Appearance Thereof.)

“This not all. In July 2022, Pillay’s fellow commissioner Miloon Kothari railed against “the Jewish Lobby” and questioned Israel’s right to be a member state of the UN. Mr. Kothari was condemned by the world’s leading democracies, and by top UN officials including Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Astonishingly, however, Navi Pillay defended him.”

“For those reasons, the Mayor of Berlin in 2022 withdrew her support for a town hall event set to honor Navi Pillay, and the award was canceled.”

“By honoring Pillay, the Nobel committee has failed to uphold the principles it seeks to celebrate. International justice depends on impartiality. When an investigator campaigns to punish a country before examining the evidence, she compromises the credibility of both her findings and the institution she represents.

Pillay’s defense of a colleague who invoked “the Jewish lobby” is especially disturbing. A human rights leader should recognize and unequivocally reject antisemitic stereotypes. Her response instead helped shield her colleague from accountability. The Nobel committee should have confronted that record before presenting her as a model of integrity.

The victims of discrimination deserve institutions that apply the same standards to everyone.

Today’s decision sends the wrong message: that achievements elsewhere excuse prejudice against Jews and the abandonment of basic standards of fairness when investigating Israel. That weakens the cause of universal human rights.

The post UN Watch Condemns Nobel Peace Prize for Navi Pillay, Citing Bias and Defense of Antisemitism appeared first on UN Watch.

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As world leaders used the UN podium to condemn Israel, UN Watch invited courageous Yemeni journalist Luai Ahmed to tell the truth before the UN Human Rights Council: “Our problem in the Middle East is neither Israel nor the Jews. It is the Islamist dictatorships.”

Video Transcript:

Emir Al Thani, Qatar: “What has transpired in Gaza is genocide.”

President Al-Sharaa, Syria: “We reject Israeli aggressions which undermines peace and security.”

Prime Minister Sharif, Pakistan: “Religious hatred must have no place in this world.”

President Abbas, Palestinian Authority: “We seek a democratic Palestinian state that respects the rule of law and human rights.”

President Pezeshkian, Islamic Republic of Iran: “Lasting peace in West Asia is impossible without justice for Palestine. As long as occupation, aggression and injustice persist in the world resistance will continue.”

President of UN Human Rights Council: “Now we will proceed with the list of speakers for non-governmental organizations.”

Luai Ahmed for UN Watch: “As a Muslim, I listened carefully as Muslim countries lectured on human rights and I have a few questions for them.

I ask the Islamic Republic of Iran: If you care about injustice why did you open fire on Iranian protesters massacring tens of thousands of people who called for freedom?

Qatar: If you care about genocide why did you harbor and fund the Hamas terrorists who actually attempted genocide on October 7th?

Syria: If you care about peace and security why are you slaughtering your Alawites and Druze and other minorities?

Pakistan: If you care about religious freedom why did you sentence a Christian woman to death Shagufta Kiran for allegedly sharing a WhatsApp message about the age issue in Islamic marriage?

And Mahmoud Abbas: If you seek a democratic Palestinian state why are you now in the 22nd year of your four-year term?

Mr. President, Israel did not deny Iranians their freedom. Israel did not slaughter Syria’s minorities. Israel did not cause Abbas to rule as an unelected president for life.

These governments did that to their own people.

Yet, in this hall they point their fingers at Israel and demand that we look away.

I grew up in Yemen. I know how our Arab leaders teach us to blame all of our problems on Jews and Israel.

But our problem in the Middle East is neither Israel nor the Jews.

It is the Islamist dictatorships that brutalize our people then offer us Israel as a scapegoat.”

The post “Our Problem in the Middle East is Not Israel” — Luai Ahmed Delivers Rare Moment of Truth appeared first on UN Watch.

Growing up under the Islamic Republic of Iran taught Shahrzad Eden Osterer exactly how dangerous ideological indoctrination can be. Now a journalist in Europe, she draws chilling parallels between the state propaganda of her childhood and the highly polarized, ideological echo chambers found in Western universities today.

While addressing UN Watch’s official side event at the 63rd session of the UN Human Rights Council, “Empowering Future Leaders through Human Rights Education,” Osterer argues that true human rights education must teach young people to apply universal standards consistently, not selectively based on political convenience.

Prepared Remarks:

The post De-ideologizing Human Rights Education | Shahrzad Eden Osterer appeared first on UN Watch.

European universities are struggling to protect their own students. Representing over 160,000 Jewish students across Europe, EUJS President Hanna Veiler addressed UN Watch’s official side event at the 63rd session of the UN Human Rights Council, “Empowering Future Leaders through Human Rights Education,”
exposing the severe physical violence and political intimidation happening on campuses, particularly in the wake of the October 7 massacres.

She explains why abstract commitments to human rights are meaningless if institutions fail to translate them into safe, democratic spaces for everyone.

Prepared Remarks:

Excellencies, distinguished representatives of Permanent Missions, dear colleagues,

Fifteen years after the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training, I believe there is value in reflecting not only on how effectively we teach young people about human rights, but also on whether our educational institutions provide them with the practical capacity to exercise, defend and uphold those rights.

I speak today as President of the European Union of Jewish Students, representing more than 160,000 young Jews across Europe. Much of our work takes place in universities and other educational environments, precisely the spaces in which young people first encounter democratic institutions, organise collectively, engage with opposing views and, in many cases, become politically and socially active.

Our experience has shown us that these environments can be extraordinarily powerful spaces for democratic participation, but also that there can be a considerable distance between teaching human rights as a set of principles and ensuring that those principles shape institutional practice.

This distinction has become particularly visible for Jewish students since the massacre of 7 October 2023 and the subsequent war. Universities across Europe have become important spaces for political debate about Israel and the Middle East. Such debate is a legitimate and necessary part of academic and democratic life. At the same time, Jewish students across Europe have faced harassment, intimidation, exclusion and, in some cases, severe physical violence.

Their connections to Israel, which for many are an integral part of Jewish identity, family life and community, have repeatedly been turned against them. Jewish students have been expected to justify the actions of an Israeli government, pressured to publicly distance themselves from Israel, or treated with suspicion simply for expressing a connection to the country.

Most concerningly, these experiences continue too often to be dismissed, relativized or explained away, while the antisemitic nature of incidents targeting Jewish students is questioned or denied. These experiences have demonstrated the difficulty that educational institutions can face when abstract commitments to human rights have to be translated into decisions in highly polarized environments.

Universities must be capable of protecting freedom of expression and political participation while also recognizing when political discourse crosses into discrimination, harassment or the collective attribution of responsibility to individuals because of their identity. Human rights education therefore cannot end with knowledge of legal frameworks or international declarations.

Young people also need to understand how those principles apply when rights come into tension, when public debate becomes deeply contentious, and when defending the rights of another person may be politically or socially uncomfortable. There is also a broader lesson here that extends far beyond the experience of Jewish students. If human rights education is to be genuinely universal, it must equip young people not only to defend the rights of communities to which they themselves belong, but also to recognize and defend the rights of others.

For Jewish organizations, combating antisemitism cannot be separated from a broader commitment to challenging racism, anti-Muslim hatred and other forms of discrimination. Equally, the defence of democratic freedoms cannotdepend on whether we agree with the person exercising them. The credibility of the human rights framework ultimately depends on the consistent application of its principles.

This is particularly important at a time when young people encounter political information, mobilization and increasingly also misinformation far beyond formal educational settings. Universities and schools therefore have a responsibility that goes beyond transmitting knowledge.

They should provide young people with the capacity to evaluate information critically, understand democratic and human rights institutions, engage constructively across profound disagreement, recognize discrimination and know which mechanisms are available when rights are violated.

They should also provide meaningful opportunities for young people to organize, participate in decision-making and assume responsibility within their institutions.

There is also a broader institutional dimension that we should not ignore. Human rights education cannot be separated from the credibility of the international system in which we ask young people to place their trust. Around the world, young people are taking extraordinary risks to defend fundamental freedoms, often in the face of authoritarian governments that repress dissent, restrict civil society and systematically violate human rights.

Yet some of those same governments continue to participate in international institutions, build political alliances and seek to weaken, obstruct or discredit mechanisms designed to hold states accountable. The Islamic Republic of Iran is one example, but it is by no means the only one.

For young human rights defenders living under repression, this contradiction is not an abstract institutional problem, it directly affects whether international mechanisms can meaningfully support their struggle. If we want young people to believe in the international human rights system, that system must demonstrate that political influence cannot place governments beyond meaningful scrutiny and accountability.

For those of us working with young people, this also means recognizing them not simply as recipients of human rights education, but as actors in the protection of human rights. Across Europe, young people are already leading civil society organizations, responding to discrimination, supporting vulnerable communities and participating in democratic institutions.

If I were to leave one practical recommendation, it would therefore be to strengthen the connection between human rights education and human rights practice. A young person completing their education should understand the principles contained in international human rights instruments, but they should also know how to recognize when those principles are being violated, how to make use of the institutions designed to protect them, how to participate democratically and, crucially, how to defend the rights of people whose identities, experiences or political views may be very different from their own.

If we succeed in doing that, human rights education becomes more than the transmission of knowledge. It becomes part of building the democratic resilience of the next generation.

Thank you.

The post Protecting Democratic Values and Combatting Antisemitism on Campus | Hanna Veiler appeared first on UN Watch.

After surviving 280 days as an ISIS hostage in Syria, Kurdish journalist and human rights defender Aram Aqil issues a stark warning to the world at UN Watch’s official side event at the 63rd session of the UN Human Rights Council, “Empowering Future Leaders through Human Rights Education.”

Extremist propaganda thrives where education fails. Aqil breaks down how the erasure of historical atrocities — like the Holocaust and the Armenian, Yazidi, and Anfal genocides — leaves youth dangerously vulnerable to dehumanizing terrorist narratives.

Prepared Remarks:

Growing up under the rule of a dictatorship — I mean here both Assads, the father and the son and coming from a politically active Kurdish family and belonging to a nation persecuted by four governments in the Middle East, human rights education became, for me, far more than a concept; it became something much more personal and embedded in the struggle we have carried on for decades.

From a very young age, I assisted in publishing a political magazine called “Jîn,” a Kurdish word meaning “Life.” That magazine covered topics related to human rights and democracy. Two topics where either one alone could land you in prison for years in the best-case scenario, or cost you your life in the worst.

I’ve spent around twenty years of my life under a dictatorial regime and about a year in the grip of ISIS; since gaining my freedom, I am experiencing the privilege of living in Western Europe where democracy and human rights are privileges that cannot be taken for granted, given that millions of people are deprived of them.

In December 2024, the dictator ran away, but the dictatorship remained standing, albeit with a new flavor. A jihadi terror regime came to power, entirely unconcerned with issues of human rights and democracy; it hasn’t even once mentioned these two topics; on the contrary, they view these concepts as “an abomination or the work of the devil.”

Why do I mention all this? Because here in Europe we speak freely about human rights education, we often think about classrooms, institutions and international conventions. In other corners of the world, it is obviously not the case. In the MENA region, among 25 countries, all UN member states, only a small number have integrated human rights education into their educational systems—no more than we can count on one hand.

My own journey as a youth educator made me see a huge gap: education about atrocities and genocides that took place in history. Many young people grow up with very limited opportunities to learn about the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, the Yazidi genocide, the Anfal Genocide against Kurds, and other mass atrocities that deeply targeted the region and its communities.

If young people do not learn how genocides happen, how propaganda dehumanizes people, and how looking away makes it even worse, it becomes much harder for them to recognize these patterns when they appear before their eyes. I was a witness to the Yazidi genocide in 2014; I saw how Turkish and Qatari propaganda networks contributed to portraying an entire community as less human and therefore as a legitimate target of violence. Later on, the same happened on October 7; I saw disturbing parallels in the way propaganda and dehumanizing narratives were used to portray civilians as legitimate targets, rather than as human beings entitled to protection.

A big part of what I have experienced changed the way I now understand human rights and its education. Studying and talking about rights is something, and being prepared to defend it is something very different, and that is where I believe human rights education still has a gap. We need to ask young people not only: “What are human rights?” We need to ask: “What will you do when those rights are denied? What will you do for those who are deprived of their rights? Those whose rights are being violated?”

Awareness alone is not enough; young generations need to learn how to practice human rights; they need opportunities to meet people whose histories are different from their own. That means teaching them how to recognize discrimination and extremist propaganda. It means developing critical thinking and media literacy. It means giving young people opportunities to engage with civil society and communities beyond the classroom. And it means creating genuine platforms where people from minority and marginalised communities can speak for themselves.

Thank you.

The post Surviving ISIS and Confronting Extremist Propaganda | Aram Aqil appeared first on UN Watch.

How do you teach human rights in a country where the Taliban has systematically erased fundamental freedoms? On October 5th, Afghan women’s rights activist Husna Jalal addressed UN Watch’s official side event at the 63rd session of the UN Human Rights Council, “Empowering Future Leaders through Human Rights Education,” explaining why education must extend beyond physical classrooms to safely prepare young people to document violations.

She calls on the international community to fund scholarships, build secure digital pathways, and create a global network to support young Afghan defenders denied academic freedom.

Prepared Remarks:

Excellencies, distinguished colleagues, ladies and gentlemen.

Human rights education is often described as teaching people about their rights. I would like to suggest that its real purpose is larger: to prepare people to live, defend and sustain those rights, and above all to do so when it is hardest.

The case of Afghanistan also raises a more difficult question: what does human rights education mean in a country where human rights themselves are being systematically restricted?

It is relatively easy to speak about human rights education where institutions are functioning, universities are open to everyone, and students and teachers are able to express themselves freely. The real test comes when those conditions do not exist.

In such environments, knowing your rights is not enough. A young person may understand perfectly well that women and men are entitled to equality, that education is a human right, or that people should be able to participate in the life of their society.

But what happens when speaking about those principles carries personal risk? What happens when the institutions that should provide education are themselves places of exclusion? And what happens when young people have knowledge and motivation, but no safe space in which to use them?

This is where I believe our approach to human rights education has to go further.

We need to prepare young people not only for environments in which human rights are respected, but also for environments in which those rights are contested, restricted or violated. That requires practical preparation: how to act responsibly and safely; how to preserve evidence and knowledge; how to build networks of solidarity; how to communicate across communities; how to continue learning when formal institutions become inaccessible; and how to remain connected to civil society even when civic space is shrinking.

Afghanistan has taught us another important lesson: when physical educational spaces disappear, we must find ways to ensure that the intellectual and civic space does not disappear with them.

For Afghan women and girls in particular, this means creating alternative pathways to education, mentorship and professional development, and connecting them with universities, educators, civil society organizations and peers beyond Afghanistan. It also means ensuring that qualifications, skillsand experience gained through alternative forms of learning can eventually lead to meaningful academic and professional opportunities.

We should also think differently about who we consider a future human rights leader. Leadership does not begin when someone receives a formal title or joins an established organization. It can begin with a student who questions discrimination, a teacher who protects the dignity of her students, a young journalist who insists on documenting what is happening, or a young person who creates a small space where others can continue to learn.

In countries experiencing serious human rights restrictions, these individuals may never have access to conventional leadership programmes. If we wait for them to reach established institutions before we support them, we may never reach the people who need that support most.

That is why human rights education must be resilient enough to continue beyond the classroom and, when necessary, beyond national borders. It should create relationships and communities that can survive even when institutions come under pressure.

For me, this is one of the most important lessons from Afghanistan: we should not only educate young people about human rights when conditions are favorable. We need to equip and accompany them precisely when defending those rights becomes difficult.

From this, I draw three lessons, and for each I want to suggest something practical. First, human rights education cannot be separated from the environment in which it takes place.

Students learn human rights not only from textbooks but from experience: when they can speak freely, when women participate equally, when minorities are respected, when disagreement is possible without fear. When discrimination and censorship become part of educational life, young people learn a very different lesson about whose rights matter.

Practically, every institution that teaches human rights should ask whether it practises them. Who is admitted? Who speaks? Who is protected when they dissent? Do students have a safe channel to raise complaints? Teaching the Universal Declaration is not enough if the campus contradicts it.

Second, human rights education must give young people the ability to act, not only to know. Knowing a right exists matters. Knowing how to defend it matters just as much. Young leaders need to document violations safely and responsibly, write a credible submission to a UN mechanism,advocate to decision-makers, organise a campaign, protect their digital security, and communicate across political and cultural divides.

They also need people. The greatest threat many young defenders face, especially under repression or in exile, is isolation. A single mentor who answers a message, opens a door or reviews a draft can decide whether a young person keeps going.

Practically, training should be built around real tasks, such as a mock submission to a treaty body, and every participant should leave with a named mentor and a peer network, not just a certificate.

Third, our commitment must continue when formal institutions are closed or captured. If Afghan women cannot enter universities, we cannot simply wait for the doors to reopen. We must ask how education can reach them now.

That means open learning pathways in Dari and Pashto that work on phones. It means universities agreeing to recognise what has been learned, so that interrupted education is not wasted.

It means scholarships in regional and international universities, support for Afghan educators inside and outside the country, and digital security and emergency support from the very first day, because learning in these conditions carries real risk.

Afghanistan raises an important question: what happens to the next generation of human rights leaders when the institutions that should educate, connect and support them are no longer accessible?

We cannot simply wait for conditions to improve. When classrooms and universities close, young people need alternative pathways to continue learning, remain connected and develop the skills to defend human rights safely and effectively.

So let me close with a concrete proposal. We should build an international network of universities, national human rights institutions and civil society organizations to provide sustained education, mentoring and practical leadership opportunities for young human rights defenders, especially those whose education has been restricted by repression, conflict or discrimination.

A network only matters if each of us does something specific. States can fund scholarships, recognize credible alternative and online learning, and create pathways for students and young defenders at risk.

Universities can open places and online programs, provide mentors, work with displaced and exiled academics, and protect academic freedom.

Human rights institutions and the UN system can create opportunities for young defenders to engage with human rights mechanisms safely and ensure that voices from the most restricted environments are heard.

Civil society can make training accessible in local languages, connect experienced defenders with emerging leaders, and integrate digital security and protection into their programs.

None of this requires a new treaty or institution. It requires us to connect what already exists and make it accessible to those who need it most.

Afghanistan is an urgent example, but the lesson goes beyond Afghanistan. If we want the next generation to defend universal human rights, we cannot wait until they are established leaders.

We must invest in them while they are learning, while they are finding their voices, and especially when using those voices comes at a cost.

Thank you.

The post Human Rights Education Under Oppression in Afghanistan | Husna Jalal appeared first on UN Watch.