By acclamation, the 54-nation council elected Algeria’s Amar Bendjamav to a one-year term.

BREAKING: 🇩🇿 Algeria's authoritarian regime has just been elected by acclamation to become President of the United Nations Economic and Social Council, the primary UN organ overseeing human rights commissions.

“I hear no objection.” Room breaks out into long applause. pic.twitter.com/pTZeIWUIag

— UN Watch (@UNWatch) July 23, 2026

“Handing the gavel of a key UN human rights body to a regime that jails journalists, tortures dissidents, and outlaws its own human rights groups sends absolutely the wrong message to human rights victims worldwide,” said Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch.

Neuer called on UN chief Antonio Guterres and rights chief Volker Türk to condemn the election, citing Algeria’s human rights violations.

Algeria’s Record of Repression

Algeria is rated by Freedom House in 2025 as “Not Free,” with a score of 31/100 on civil liberties and political rights. It has recently escalated a crackdown on fundamental freedoms.

On July 7, 2026, Algerian authorities arrested journalist Mourad At-Mimou over social media posts critical of Algeria’s July 2 parliamentary elections, which had record-low voter turnout after the government barred nearly a third of prospective candidates. Mimou’s arrest follows a well-established pattern of journalist arrests to suppress freedom of speech and political dissent, with three other journalists, Hassan Bouras, Omar Ferhat, and Abdelali Mezghiche, also imprisoned in 2026.

According to the U.S. State Department’s 2024 report, security forces routinely detain people for participating in unauthorized protests or publicly criticizing the government, often holding them for hours before releasing them without charge. Human rights groups have documented at least 250 arbitrary detentions in 2024 alone of individuals merely for expressing their opinions.

Algerian government officials also use torture against detainees. Trade unionist Ali Mammeri, who was held incommunicado for several days after his March 2025 arrest over social media posts supporting imprisoned activists, said he was tortured during interrogation. In February 2026, a court upheld his conviction and 10-year prison sentence.

Algerian authorities have targeted civil society groups that criticize the government’s human rights violations. On June 29, 2022, an Algerian administrative court dissolved the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights, the country’s oldest independent human rights organization.

This pattern of repression has continued. In March 2026, authorities forcibly closed SOS Disparus, which advocates for families of dissidents and journalists forcibly disappeared.

As ECOSOC president, the regime that silences rights groups and dissidents at home now gets to preside over the body that determines their access to the world stage.

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“It’s like putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank,” said Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch. “Electing repressive regimes like China, Russia and Turkey to a key UN council, which has the power to expel human rights groups from the UN, is a moral outrage, and shame on our democracies who were complicit.”

Neuer called on UN chief Antonio Guterres, UN rights chief Volker Türk and EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas to condemn the election of dictatorships to ECOSOC.

“Today’s election diminishes the credibility of the United Nations human rights system and casts a shadow upon the reputation of the organization as a whole,” Neuer said.

Russia won 115 votes, or 61% of those voting in the UN General Assembly ballot yesterday. Turkey won 174 votes (92%); China won 180 votes (95%); Chad won 183 votes (96%); Burundi won 184 votes (97%). Another 13 countries were also elected, including Lebanon, Mozambique and Norway.

UN Watch criticized the EU’s 27 member states, many of whom voted for China, Turkey, Burundi and Chad.

While the UN ballot was secret, the results show that only 9 of 189 UN states voting in the UN General Assembly declined to vote for China. “Consequently, at least 18 EU countries voted for Xi Jinping’s oppressive regime, which has a million Uighur Muslims locked up in camps.”

Likewise, only 15 countries declined to vote for Turkey, meaning at least 12 EU states voted for the Erdogan regime that has imprisoned opposition leaders and severely curtailed civil liberties. The EU even congratulated the Erdogan regime on its election.

A majority of at least 21 EU states voted for serial abusers Burundi and Chad.

ECOSOC is Key UN Organ Overseeing Human Rights Bodies

ECOSOC is the sole principal organ under the UN Charter mandated to adopt resolutions for the purpose of “promoting respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all.”

The body accredits and oversees human rights groups at the UN, deciding which of them can participate at the UN Human Rights Council.

“This UN vote gives non-democracies malign influence at the world body. World leaders who failed to prevent it must now speak out for basic decency and morality in UN bodies,” said Neuer.

Importantly, ECOSOC decides which nations will sit on the UN Commission on the Status of Women, and the and the Executive Board of UN Women. As a result, it is more likely that misogynistic regimes like the Islamic Republic of Iran will be elected again to the UN’s top bodies for the empowerment of women and gender equality.

As ECOSOC member, China, Russia and Turkey will also be voting for who gets to sit on the UN’s Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Executive Board of the United Nations Children’s Fund, and the UN Commission for Social Development.

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10. Denied Venezuelan Hunger: In the first-ever U.N. visit to Venezuela, Alfred de Zayas, the U.N. Human Rights Council’s Cuban-backed “Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order,” posted propaganda photos to deny mass hunger caused by the regime’s failed policies.

After UN Watch exposed the sick lie—in truth, Venezuelan hospitals are filled with starving children—the U.N. official was pressured into deleting his blog post and tweet.

9. Foxes to Guard the Chickens: The U.N. elected Qatar (slave labor), Pakistan (death row for Christian ‘blasphemers’), Democratic Republic of Congo (mass rape as weapon of war), Afghanistan (abuse of women) and Angola (corrupt & oppressive regime) to the 47-nation Human Rights Council, for 3-year terms beginning in January 2018. Existing members already include Saudi Arabia, China, Cuba and Venezuela.
UN Watch led the protest with a major report and social media campaign, cited in AP, Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Deutsche Welle & Spain’s EFE.

8. Mugabe as Goodwill Ambassador: In October, the U.N.’s World Health Organization named Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe a “goodwill ambassador.”
UN Watch’s protest sparked world outrage—generating a blitz of media reports in CNN, Washington Post, Newsweek and 140 other news agencies. Eventually, donor states including the U.S., Britain and Canada protested, and the dictator was dropped. A month later, Mugabe was overthrown—no thanks to the United Nations, which had only sought to legitimize him.

7. Making Putin the Victim: U.N. expert Idriss Jazairy (above), a former Algerian diplomat, published a report astoundingly concluding that Russia was a victim of human rights violations—due, he said, to U.S. and EU “unilateral coercive measures.”

UN Watch’s Hillel Neuer took the floor in the Human Rights Council to question the ethics of Jazairy’s office recently accepting $50,000 from Russia. Jazairy lashed out at UN Watch, and denied any influence. The story was reported worldwide by AP, The Independent, and Radio Free Europe.

 6. U.N. Punished Whistleblower for Trying to Stop Outing of Chinese Dissidents: The U.N. human rights office retaliated against employee Emma Reilly after she tried to stop the dangerous hand-over to China of names of dissidents slated to attend a Human Rights Council session. An independent watchdog also called for Prince Zeid al-Hussein (above), the U.N. rights chief, to be suspended and placed under investigation for his alleged mistreatment of whistleblowers such as Anders Kompass, who tried to stop peacekeepers raping children in Central African Republic, and Miranda Brown, who exposed the U.N. transfer of unlicensed shipments of U.S. computers and firewalls to North Korea.

5. Rewarding Genocidal Syria: The U.N. elected Syria’s genocidal regime to a senior post on a decolonization committee charged with opposing the “subjugation, domination and exploitation” of people. The propaganda victory was quickly trumpeted by the Assad regime.

4. Honoring Qaddafi Agent: In March, the U.N. Human Rights Council opening session gave a position of honor to its Advisory Committee member Jean Ziegler, co-founder and 2002 recipient of the “Muammar Qaddafi Human Rights Prize.” Two weeks later, Eric Tistounet, a top official of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, joined a panel showering praise upon Ziegler as a great “intellectual.”

UN Watch protested in a detailed letter that documented’s Ziegler’s despicable record of siding with murderous regimes.
Executive Director Hillel Neuer took the floor in the Council to challenge Ziegler to his face: “I have a question for the panel member who in 1989 co-founded the Mummar Qaddafi Human Rights Prize, and who went to Tripoli, Libya, on Sept. 29, 2002, to himself win that prize.”
“Given that this Council eventually reversed its policy on the Qaddafi regime, and suspended Libya in 2011 for its gross and systematic abuses, do you regret your actions? The Swiss media reported that the prize was worth 100,000 Swiss Francs. Would you consider returning these funds to the Libyan people?”

3. Purges Teachers, Now on UNESCO Board: In November, the U.N. agency for education, science & culture elected Turkey to its executive board—barely one year after President Erodgan summarily fired 100,000 teachers, university deans, academics, judges, and other officials. Erodogan persecuted heroic journalists like Can Dundar and Yavuz Baydar, yet will now be a U.N. judge of press freedom. Turkish propaganda celebrated the win, as reported by UN Watch.

2. Mother of All Rogues’ Galleries: In September, the U.N. Human Rights Council assembled the most despicable single panel of presenters in its 70-year history, legitimized by the presence and speech of a former top official of Human Rights Watch. The subject was “unilateral coercive measures,” i.e., why Western sanctions against oppressive regimes like Russia, Sudan, or Venezuela, are supposedly illegal.
Left to right: Jean Ziegler, a UNHRC advisor who founded and won the Qaddafi Prize, used his slot to openly defend the Maduro regime and to attack Venzuela’s political prisoners; Idriss Jazairy, a U.N. expert who as Algerian diplomat was the greatest enemy of legitimate U.N. human rights experts; Peggy Hicks, representative of High Commissioner Zeid al-Hussein and former U.N. rep of Ken Roth’s Human Rights Watch, was silent as Ziegler praised Venezuela; Jorge Valero, ambassador of the oppressive Maduro regime, the official moderator of the panel; Alena Douhan, a Belarus academic with a soft spot for Russia, whose doctorate was on the principle of “non-interference” in countries’ “internal affairs”; and Alfred de Zayas, expert of the UNHRC whose World War II revisionist history has made him a hero to Holocaust deniers.
UN Watch was the only voice at the United Nations to take the floor, in the Council and outside, to challenge this perversion of human rights.


1. Saudi Arabia Elected to U.N. Women’s Rights Commission: In April, the 54-nation Economic and Social Council elected Saudi Arabia to the U.N.’s women’s rights commission, despite its horrific subjugation of women. UN Watch’s report went completely viral, quoted in CNN, Newsweek, the leading papers of France, Britain, Germany, Spain, Italy—and even in Teen Vogue.
When UN Watch also revealed that at least five European Union states voted for the Saudis, a major scandal erupted in Belgium—the prime minister was forced to admit their immoral vote and he apologized—and controversies erupted in the parliaments and media of Ireland, Norway and Sweden. Click for video.
 

The post The Top 10 Most Evil U.N. Actions of 2017 appeared first on UN Watch.

“Qatari women are subject to discrimination in law and practice, particularly in relation to divorce, inheritance, child custody, nationality and freedom of movement. A male guardian and male witnesses are required to validate a marriage contract. Women are prohibited from passing citizenship to their children, have fewer inheritance rights than men, and their testimony in court is not weighted equally with that of a man.”

“Qatari penalties for sex outside of marriage are flogging for non-married violators or the death penalty for married violators. According to media reports, there have been dozens of floggings for this crime since 2016. Furthermore, in 2016, a Dutch woman was sentenced to one-year imprisonment and deported for engaging in extramarital sex after she reported that she had been raped,” said Neuer.

“In addition, Qatar is notorious for supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and its Palestinian offshoot, Hamas, and also has close ties with the Taliban and al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria and Iran.”

UNHRC Election & Qatar’s Failed UNESCO Bid 

The Human Rights Council today elected Vojislav Šuc of Slovenia as its president for 2018, and German ambassador Antje Leednertse as one of the four vice presidents, but unlike in typical years, three of the other VP spots—for Asia, Africa, and Latin America—were not yet identified.
In November, Qatar’s bid for Director-General of UNESCO was rejected in favor of France’s Audrey Azoulay, despite substantial lobbying efforts including Qatari candidate Hamad bin Abdulaziz al-Kawari flying 10 UNESCO board members to Doha on an all-expenses paid trip ahead of the vote.
 
 

The post Qatar bid for vice-presidency of UN Human Rights Council axed by Arab rivals appeared first on UN Watch.

CLICK HERE FOR NEW REPORT ON UNHRC CANDIDATES

GENEVA, October 16, 2017 – Despite a recent pledge by a Dutch-led coalition of 47 nations, the U.N. today elected gross abusers—Qatar, Pakistan, DR Congo, Afghanistan and Angola—to the U.N.’s highest human rights body in a virtually uncontested race, flouting U.S. ambassador Nikki Haley’s June warning to stop electing “the world’s worst human rights offenders.”

In a detailed study released today by UN Watch, a Geneva-based non-governmental human rights organization, found that Qatar, Pakistan, Congo, Afghanistan, Angola and Nigeria have poor records and fail to qualify according to the UN’s own basic membership criteria. The council already counts Saudi Arabia, Burundi, China, Cuba, Venezuela, and UAE as members.

The U.N. also elected Mexico, Nepal, Senegal and Ukraine, all of whom were deemed “questionable” by UN Watch, due to their problematic human rights records or UN voting records.

“Sadly, the UN disregarded its own rules and principles by electing governments who violate the human rights of their own citizens, and who consistently vote the wrong way on UN initiatives to protect the human rights of others,” said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer.

“The U.N. electing Qatar, Congo and Pakistan as world judges of human rights is like a asking the foxes to guard the chickens,” said Neuer. “It’s absurd, immoral and offensive.”

UN Watch is proposing two major reforms to the election system, said Neuer:

• “If our own democracies continue to disregard the election criteria by voting for abusers,” said Neuer, “then we should just scrap elections altogether, and make every country a member, as is the case in the General Assembly’s human rights committee. At least that way Saudi ambassadors around the world could no longer hold up their UNHRC election as a shield of international legitimacy to cover up the abuses of their regime.”
• “Vote trades flourish in the darkness of the UN’s archaic secret ballot system for elections. We need to make elections public, as is the case with all other kinds of UN voting, as sunshine is always the best disinfectant.”

“Regrettably,” said Neuer, “despite their pledge in June to push for better membership and genuine competition among candidates, at least 22 EU states helped elect Angola ( which won 186 votes), and not one EU state said a word about hypocritical candidacies that only undermine the credibility and effectiveness of the UN human rights system. By turning a blind eye as even more human rights violators easily join and subvert the council, leading democracies will be complicit in the world body’s moral decline.”

“It is an insult to victims in these countries — like Asia Bibi, the innocent Christian mother of five on death row in Pakistan for the crime of blasphemy — and it’s a defeat for the global cause of human rights when the UN helps gross abusers act as champions and global judges of human rights. When the U.N.’s highest human rights body becomes a case of the foxes guarding the henhouse, the world’s victims suffer,” said Neuer.

*********

KEY RESOURCES

Following are key campaign resources for activists and journalists:

UN Watch Analysis

• Qatar’s human rights record
• Angola’s human rights record
• Afghanistan’s human rights record
• Pakistan’s human rights record
• DRC’s human rights record

Absurd Pledges by Dictatorships

Dictatorships have published and submitted to the UN absurd claims about their human rights record, which have been analyzed and exposed by UN Watch:

• Qatar’s absurd UNHRC campaign election platform
• Angola’s absurd UNHRC campaign election platform
• Afghanistan’s absurd UNHRC campaign election platform
• Malaysia’s absurd UNHRC campaign election platform
• Pakistan’s absurd UNHRC campaign election platform

1. Ahead of tomorrow's election, we now present the farce of the U.N. Human Rights Council, by shining a spotlight on candidates' pledges.

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 15, 2017

2. Candidate #Afghanistan.
The Lie: "We bring vast human rights experience." https://t.co/Qrr0vqZjTq
The Truth: Killings, torture, abuse. pic.twitter.com/RubQslu3si

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 15, 2017

3. Candidate #Pakistan.
The Lie: "We are deeply committed to human rights" https://t.co/YjpvOOQceM
The Truth: Death sentence for "blasphemy" pic.twitter.com/YHqtUvWIVv

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 15, 2017

4. DR Congo gift baskets—to be given today to @UN delegates before Human Rights Council election. But DRC agents rape, oppress, kill. pic.twitter.com/tm7qv8x542

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 16, 2017

5. Arguments of Congo's UNHRC campaign flyer:
– African endorsed us
– We're needed for stability
– We have territory, population & a capital pic.twitter.com/XFMb26MXcW

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 16, 2017

6. Candidate #Qatar pledges "constructive role to resolve regional crises." Yet Qatar backs terror in the region and violates human rights. pic.twitter.com/d2esvZGQzn

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 16, 2017

7. @UN_HRC candidate #Angola claims it "protects & promotes human rights." Truth: outgoing President dos Santos robbed his own people. pic.twitter.com/pYXwOHKBGM

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 16, 2017

8. Candidate #Malaysia believes in "people-centred" & "non-politicized" approach to human rights, "pursued through dialogue." #UNHRCelection pic.twitter.com/GwqOLJYiw0

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 16, 2017

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• UN Watch letter to EU
• UN Watch letter to Ban Ki-moon

 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
UNITED NATIONS, April 13, 2015 – Out of possible deference to the nuclear talks with Iran, the EU and the US failed to stop the fundamentalist regime from winning a top post on UN Women, the world agency for women’s equality and empowerment, in sharp contrast to the West’s easy defeat of Iran’s 2010 bid by backing an alternative candidate, said UN Watch, the Geneva-based rights group, in a statement today.
“Electing the Iranian regime to the UN women’s rights board is like making a pyromaniac into the town fire chief,” said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer. “The UN’s decision is an insult to all Iranian women and to all women’s rights advocates around the world,” he added.
In letters sent today (see PDFs above), UN Watch urged UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and EU High Representative Federica Mogherini to at least condemn the decision, “which sends absolutely the worst message to Iran’s women’s rights defenders, and to the world, concerning Iran’s dismal record on child marriages, forced head-coverings, domestic violence, and gender inequality,” said Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch.
“By elevating Iran to a global leadership post on women’s equality, the UN is legitimizing a regime that systematically treats women as second-class citizens.”
“The UN’s election of Iran by an overwhelming two-thirds majority is a moral outrage that threatens to undermine the UN Secretary-General’s own report on Iran’s pervasive discrimination against women,” said Neuer. Iran won 36 out of a possible 54 votes from the UN Economic and Social Council.
“Iran is considered one of the worst countries in the world on women’s rights, ranking 137th out of 142 countries in the latest Global Gender Gap Index of the World Economic Forum,” said Neuer.
Free Pass for Iran? EU & US failed to back alternative candidate
UN Watch pointed out that in 2010, the US and the EU strongly backed an alternative candidate, the otherwise weak East Timor, causing Iran to lose its bid that year for a seat the Executive Board of UN Women.
“This time, possibly in deference to the Iran nuclear talks, the West failed to back any alternative candidates. Although the U.S. admirably called a vote in protest, this came at the last minute and with no other candidates on the ballot, meaning Iran’s victory was guaranteed,” said Neuer.
“Did the U.S. and EU deliberately give Iran a free pass? This is something that that US and EU lawmakers should demand to know,” said Neuer.
“What makes Iran such an offensive choice is not only its abysmal record on women’s rights but also the fact that it’s aggressively going after women’s rights defenders who courageously speak out against misogynistic laws in the country,” he added.
“Time and again, Iran shows contempt to the founding purpose of UN Women, and should never have been elected to its board.”
Election of Iran Undermines UN Chief’s Own Report
In February, Mr. Ban reported to the UN Human Rights Council on Iran’s abysmal record on child marriages, forced head-covering enforced by morality police, acid attacks, domestic violence, spousal rape, state-enforced control of women by their husbands, and gross inequality in the workplace, education and public sphere.
Although UN officials sometimes claim their inability to criticize elections by member states, UN Watch’s letter to Ban recalled that UNESCO chief Irina Bokova rightly criticized the 2011 election of Syria to two human rights committees.
“Accordingly, we urge you to speak out forcefully against this cynical attempt by Iran to undermine the global struggle for women’s equality and empowerment,” wrote Neuer in the UN Watch letter to Secretary-General Ban.
Iranian Journalist Masih Alinejad Condemns Election of Regime

Writing to 700,000 followers of her Facebook page for Iranian women’s rights, journalist Masih Alinejad, winner of the 2015 Geneva Summit Women’s Rights Award, called the election “an insult to many Iranian women who are suffering from the lack of equal rights.”
“The existing laws in my country do not allow me as a woman to walk in public without wearing the veil; I, as a woman, do not even have the freedom to choose my own dress. The laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran do not allow me to travel or get an education without the permission of my husband. I cannot even get married without the permission of my father.”
“The laws in my country do not allow women to sing solo as our voice allegedly runs the risk of provoking men. Under laws of the Islamic Republic, my share of inheritance is half of that of my male relatives. Under the laws of the Islamic Republic, just last year more than 18,000 women ended up in court for being ‘badly veiled.’ UN Women was created by the United Nations as a body for gender equality and for the empowerment of women. If so, isn’t it an insult to women to give the leadership role to those governments that oppress their own women?”

The post EU & US Allowed Iran to Win Top Seat on UN Women’s Rights Board, Rights Group Says appeared first on UN Watch.

Raif Badawi’s wife Ensaf Haidar receiving the 2015 Geneva Summit
Courage Award on behalf of her husband, a political prisoner in
Saudi Arabia, delivered to her home in Sherbrooke, Quebec,
by UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer, onJuly 6, 2015.

Deal for Dropping Saudi Presidency Bid?
Neuer expressed concern that the Saudis may have been handed the position in a backroom deal, in exchange for dropping the regime’s controversial bid to become president of the entire 47-nation council. “I urge Ambassador Power and High Commissioner Mogherini to confirm that this is not the case,” he said.
Riyadh pulled out from seeking the council presidency in June following UN Watch’s protest campaign, covered in newspapers worldwide.
U.S. & EU Were Silent When Saudi Arabia Was Elected to UNHRC in 2013
“We cannot forget that the U.S. and the EU refused to utter a word of protest when we urged them, together with Saudi dissidents, to oppose the monarchy’s election in 2013. It’s a sad comment on our world that oil continues to trump basic human rights principles.”
“It’s bad enough that Saudi Arabia is a member of the council, but for the UN to go and name the regime as chair of a key panel only pours salt in the wounds for dissidents languishing in Saudi prisons, like human rights activist Raif Badawi.”
 

The post Again: Saudis to Behead of UN Human Rights Council Panel appeared first on UN Watch.

UN Human Rights Council President (right) in Jeddah
addressed a Saudi-hosted OIC conference on religious freedom

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