UN Watch was quoted by media outlets around the world in May 2026 on numerous topics, including our new report, “From Watchdog to Ideologues.”
Appeared on i24 News, May 28, 2026:
Key Quote:
Look, it’s numerous of the so-called UN human rights experts who get quoted every day by Reuters, the New York Times and other major media. We found that a number of them are taking money direct funding from China, Russia and Qatar. I’ll give a few examples. Ben Saul, he’s a law professor at the University of Sydney. According to UN documents in 2024 he received $150,000 from China for his activities. And surprise surprise he’s the expert on counterterrorism. He’s never said a word to condemn China for putting a million Uyghur Muslims into camps in the name of counterterrorism. He hadn’t he hadn’t a word to say about that. Instead, he attacks Israel and America every single day…We need Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Australia not only the U.S. to speak out and call out these UN rapporteurs when they are ideologically captured or when they’re financially corrupt. And we need them to hold them to account. And if it means defunding them sanctioning them that’s what we need to see.
Appeared on i24 France, May 28, 2026:
Key Quote:
This is a very difficult decision by the Secretary-General. It is an inversion of reality. The reality is that on October 7, it was Hamas that committed sexual crimes against Israeli victims, and also afterward in Gaza with the hostages. And there is no evidence that there was an Israeli policy. It is possible that there were certain violations, but in this case, there is no evidence that there was a systematic policy of these abuses. Really, this is an attempt to reverse reality here and make Israel equal to, or even worse than, Hamas. It’s horrible.
Appeared on Foreign Policy, by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, May 29, 2026:
Key Quote:
Who are these UN experts? How are they appointed? Who funds them? What is the nature of their activity? And are they held accountable? And that’s what our report is. There’s about 59 of these UN so-called independent human rights experts. We looked at 20%, so it’s a substantial sample. We looked at 13 of them, and we found that nearly all of them are engaged in very extreme anti-American agendas, anti-Western agendas, anti-capitalist, far-left agendas, and certainly anti-Israel. That is the dominant ethos. If you’re not willing to spread that kind of message, you don’t get appointed to these jobs. It’s the dictatorships that I mentioned- China, Qatar, Cuba- that often sit on the bodies that select the experts. And I would say you have a very bizarre alliance, a toxic cocktail, if you will, between the world’s worst regimes that have power at the UN that elect these people, but then they get legitimized by so-called human rights groups, groups like Amnesty International, that have a very far-left agenda.
Featured in The Telegraph, “Michelle Bachelet Would Be a Calamitous UN Chief,” May 23, 2026:
This week we learnt that the body already criticised for its seeming powerlessness in the face of successive humanitarian crises is considering appointing as its next secretary-general a woman described by UN Watch as “the dictator’s shield”. The campaign group is urging the UN Security Council to block a bid by former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet, citing her controversial four-year tenure as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
During that period she remained silent on the mass detention of Uyghurs in China, the poisoning of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, and Iran’s forced hijab laws. “Under Bachelet’s tenure, the office tasked with defending human rights became an office that protected the world’s worst abusers,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch. “The next secretary-general must be someone willing to confront dictators, not shield them.”
Featured in the New York Post, “How For-Sale UN “Experts” Weaponize Human Rights to Serve Tyranny,” May 28, 2026:
On Tuesday, the Geneva-based group UN Watch released “From Watchdogs to Ideologues,” a 104-page investigation into 13 of the UN’s 59 Special Rapporteurs — the supposedly independent human-rights monitors whose findings are routinely treated as authoritative by the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, Western governments and Western media. The picture is damning. The office of Alena Douhan, the UN’s rapporteur on “unilateral coercive measures” — whose mandate, in plain English, is to attack Western sanctions on dictators — has accepted $1.3 million from China, Russia and Qatar…As UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer put it, if a judge took $1.3 million from one of the parties in a case, he’d be disqualified on the spot; if a journalist endorsed a terror group on social media, she’d be fired that same afternoon.
Quoted in the National Post, “Mark Carney goes full Laurentian elite with Louise Arbour pick,” May 6, 2026:
Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch accused Arbour of applying double standards. “The problem was that she made no distinction between a terrorist group that every time they hit civilians it’s a victory, as opposed to Israel, which is trying to defend itself from terrorist groups, and every time a civilian is killed as collateral damage, that’s a tragedy,” said Neuer.
Featured in the Washington Examiner, “Every US Ally Is Under Attack — From the Very Institutions American Taxpayers Fund,” May 29, 2026:
American taxpayers fund the United Nations. American diplomats built it. This week, the Geneva-based group UN Watch released the most thorough accounting yet of who actually pays the salaries and shapes the verdicts of the U.N.’s human rights enforcers. The short answer: not the United States. The 104-page dossier, “From Watchdogs to Ideologues,” surveys 13 of the UN’s 59 Special Rapporteurs — the formally autonomous specialists whose findings carry near-judicial weight at the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, Western foreign ministries, and across the global press. It documents not occasional ideological tilt but the wholesale capture of a Western-built institution by the regimes it was meant to constrain…
Featured in Il Foglio, “Special Rapporteurs. Champion of Human Rights, Parrots of Dictatorships. A Report on the ‘Jewels of the UN,'” May 26, 2026:
Now the report “From Watchdogs to Ideologues,” published by UN Watch, the watchdog that keeps watch over the Glass Palace, dismantles the system. Irene Khan (Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression) repeatedly visited China before her appointment, complete with public praise for the “Belt and Road.” Selected by a panel led by China, Khan stands out for her almost total silence on repression in China, Cuba, Eritrea, Nicaragua, North Korea and other regimes. The most emblematic case described in the report is that of Alena Douhan, Special Rapporteur on unilateral coercive measures (that is, sanctions). According to the document, Douhan attributed the economic and humanitarian crises of authoritarian countries to Western sanctions, neglecting internal factors such as corruption, political repression, poor economic management or armed conflicts. Her official missions mainly concerned countries such as China, Russia, Syria, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Cuba and Iran, producing reports favorable to the governments visited.
Featured in The Australian, “This Book is Not Balanced,” May 2, 2026:
A UN Watch report in 2024 records Albanese as an anti-Israel activist and former UNRWA official. She dismissed Israel’s accusations that UNRWA employees had participated in the October 7 atrocities as “fallacious allegations” despite the UN admitting at least nine UNRWA employees had participated in the attacks. The report claimed that Albanese also endorsed comparing the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, to Adolf Hitler. Castigated by France and Germany for antisemitism when she denied the October 7 massacre was the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust, she justified it as a “reaction to Israel’s oppression”.
Featured in The Epoch Times, “UN Human Rights Experts Funded by Dictatorships,” May 30, 2026:
In the document, UN Watch alleges that Alena Douhan, Special Rapporteur on the negative consequences of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights, received approximately $1.3 million from China, Russia, and Qatar through her office. According to the organization’s reconstruction, nearly $980,000 came from the Chinese Communist Party, approximately $265,000 from the Kremlin, and another $50,000 from Doha. Also accused is Ben Saul, Special Rapporteur on terrorism and human rights, who allegedly received $150,000 from the Chinese regime, while George Katrougalos, Independent Expert on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order, allegedly received $100,000 from the communist dictatorship in 2025.
Featured in Ceska Televize, “Authoritarian Regimes Bribe UN Special Rapporteurs, UN Watch Finds,” May 28, 2026:
A report by the non-profit organization UN Watch has revealed widespread interference by authoritarian states in the work of UN special rapporteurs. The investigation found that one in five of them accepted large sums of money and acted favorably towards donor countries. Some rapporteurs thus promote the agenda of countries such as Russia, China or Qatar. The UN has not yet commented.
Featured in Il Foglio, “Iran Is Working to Combat Violence Against Women. ‘Moral Collapse.’ Hillel Neuer Speaks Out,” May 16, 2026:
When Hillel Neuer enters the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, he is not warmly welcomed. Eyes follow him from the moment he climbs the stairs. “I am the most hated man at the UN,” he says of himself. Neuer is the founder of UN Watch, the Geneva-based organization that, for more than twenty years, has been doing something that no one else at the United Nations bothers to do: tell the truth. “It is easy for dictatorships to be elected thanks to the regional mechanism, so that countries like China, Iran and Pakistan obtain these seats and use their power to intimidate other countries,” Hillel Neuer tells Il Foglio.
Quoted in the National Post, ” Louise Arbour Is in the Club — You Are Not,” May 5, 2026:
Treasury Board President Vic Toews called her “a disgrace” in the House of Commons. B’nai Brith Canada called Toews’ remarks justified. UN Watch accused her of applying a double standard — using quiet diplomacy with Russia and China while publicly threatening Israeli leaders with prosecution.”
Featured in The Washington Stand, “20% of UN Special Rapporteurs Are Ideologically or Financially Tied to Tyrannies, Report Claims,” May 31, 2026:
Across its 104 pages, the report presents profiles of 13 Special Rapporteurs of the Human Rights Council — representing more than one-fifth of the 59 thematic or country-specific mandates tasked with reporting on human rights — and “reveals a pattern of ideological bias, financial conflicts of interest, and conduct that would end any professional career in any other institution,” a U.N. Watch source consulted for this article noted. “The U.N. human rights system was founded to protect victims of abuse,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based NGO. “Instead, it is being manipulated to attack democracies and protect some of the world’s worst human rights violators.”
Featured in JNS, “UN Special Rapporteur System Is Corrupt, Opaque and Broken, Watchdog Says,” May 28, 2026:
The report decries the advisers, whom the U.N. Human Rights Council selects and who are supposed to monitor and report neutrally on human rights issues globally. The rapporteurs purport to remain independent but call their autonomy into question by accepting government funding and maintaining professional and academic networks, according to the report. “You can’t call yourself independent when you’re being funded specifically by a government—putting aside the dictatorships—or any entity,” Neuer told JNS. “That has an influence on your work.” “Beyond the fact that they’re funded by dictators, they’re also being funded by organizations with far-left agendas, like George Soros’s Open Society Institute, giving millions of dollars to many of the rapporteurs,” Neuer added.
Quoted in Il Tempo, “Francesca Albanese Is No Longer Celebrating: US Sanctions Against Her Have Been Reinstated,” May 24, 2026:
Hillel Neuer, director of UN Watch, reported the news on X, noting that “following consideration of the U.S. government’s emergency request for an immediate administrative stay and a stay pending appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals has ordered a partial administrative stay of the preliminary injunction order issued by the district court on May 13, 2026, pending further action by the Court.”
Featured in Ynet News, “UN Watch Bombshell Report: UN Rights Envoys Accused of Bias, Foreign Funding and Ethical Breaches,” May 26, 2026:
The report adds that UN agencies frequently rely on unverified NGO reports and confidential sources, which it argues undermines accepted evidentiary standards. Despite these concerns, such reports continue to be cited by international courts, governments and major media outlets. In its conclusions, the report calls for broad structural reforms, including independent oversight mechanisms, transparency requirements and clear sanctions for misconduct. Proposed measures include a coalition of democratic states to regularly evaluate special rapporteurs, a ban on receiving external government funding, an independent external body for oversight and discipline, more stringent vetting of candidates outside UN political selection processes, and stricter evidentiary standards to reduce reliance on anonymous and unverified sources.
Featured in The Eastleigh Voice, “UN Watch Accuses 13 UN Rapporteurs of Bias and Conflicts of Interest,” May 26, 2026:
UN Watch also claims that reporting has not been applied consistently across countries, with some states facing repeated scrutiny while serious abuses elsewhere receive less attention or are not addressed in the same way. Similarly, the organisation alleges that some of the experts have publicly expressed views or taken positions that it says go beyond neutral reporting and reflect political opinions, rather than the impartial standards expected of their roles.
“The UN’s human rights system was founded to protect victims of abuse. Instead, it is being manipulated to attack democracies and shield some of the world’s worst human rights violators,” said UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer.
Featured in Nicola Porro, “UN Experts on the Payroll of Russia, China, and Qatar. No Surprises. A Bloc of Corrupt Officials Protected by Total Impunity,”
“UN rapporteurs operate without constraints or ethical consequences – and there isn’t even a procedure for removing them,” said Hillel Neuer, director of UN Watch. “The result is a powerful bloc of compromised officials who enjoy not only diplomatic immunity but also complete impunity.” He added that “the UN human rights system was founded to protect victims of abuse. Instead, it is being manipulated to attack democracies and protect some of the world’s worst human rights violators.”
Featured in The Zimbabwean, “UN Watch Urges UN Security Council to Reject Michelle Bachelet Bid for Secretary-General,” May 27, 2026:
UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer accused Bachelet of turning the human rights office into an entity that protected major abusers. The organization released a list of 11 questions regarding her record, drawing from its September 2022 report, “Blind Eye to Dictatorships.” The report alleges that Bachelet’s office gave disproportionate attention to criticizing liberal democracies while remaining silent on severe abuses by authoritarian regimes. Specifically, UN Watch questioned why Bachelet failed to initiate any timely public statements regarding the poisoning and arrest of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, the detention of over 1,000,000 Uyghurs in China, and Iran’s forced hijab laws.
Featured in Diario Surnoticias, “UN Watch Urges the UN Security Council to Block Michelle Bachelet’s Candidacy for Secretary-General,” May 21, 2026:
The organization UN Watch on Thursday called on the UN Security Council to reject Michelle Bachelet ‘s candidacy to become the next Secretary – General of the United Nations , questioning her four-year tenure as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. The NGO accused Bachelet of maintaining public silence on issues such as the mass detention of Uyghurs in China, the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny , and Iran’s mandatory hijab laws.“Under Bachelet ’s mandate , the office in charge of defending human rights became an office that protected the worst abusers in the world,” said Hillel Neuer , executive director of UN Watch.”The next person to head the UN must be willing to stand up to dictators, not protect them,” he added.
Featured in Ex Ante, “UN: Bachelet’s First Debate and What Lies Behind Her Dealings With Russia, France and the United Kingdom,” May 22, 2026:
The debate in London is taking place amid an offensive by UN Watch, a Geneva-based NGO that monitors the performance of the UN and has been one of Bachelet’s most vocal critics for years. On May 19, the organization formally asked the Security Council to reject her candidacy.
Quoted in The Jewish Chronicle, “UN Adds Israel to ‘Blacklist’ of Countries That Commit Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones,” May 28, 2026:
Hillel Neuer, the director of watchdog UN Watch, told the JC: “The UN has once again descended into moral bankruptcy by placing Israel on this blacklist, alongside Hamas, the very terrorists who systematically raped, mutilated, and sexually tortured Israeli women, men, and children on October 7, and thereafter against the hostages in Gaza. Israel provided the UN with extensive documentation disproving the accusation. This decision strips the UN of any remaining credibility and reveals the extent to which it has been captured by those who hate Israel more than they hate rape as a weapon of war.” Neuer also called Israel’s inclusion a “blood libel,” adding: “The world should treat this blacklist with the contempt it deserves. Democracies must stop subsidising this institutionalised antisemitism. History will record this as another shameful chapter in the UN’s long war against the Jewish state.”
Quoted in JNS, “US Appeals Court Reinstates Sanctions Against Francesca Albanese,” May 25, 2026:
On May 23, U.N. Watch’s Hillel Neuer posted to X in a message directed at Albanese: “I tried to explain to you that the injunction was only temporary and was likely to be frozen and overturned by the appeals court, but as a non-lawyer who falsely claims to be a lawyer, you were either unwilling or unable to understand.” Neuer was referring to a controversy from last year when it was revealed that Albanese, who referred to herself as a lawyer, never passed the bar exam. She finally admitted in a May 27, 2025, interview with Vanity Fair that she never took the test “because I’m not a lawyer, and I never wanted to do it.” Although UN Watch has demanded since June 2025 that her designation as a lawyer be removed from her official U.N. biography page, the description still describes her as “an international lawyer, specialized in human rights and the Middle East.”
Featured in La Derecha Diario, “Scandal at UNRWA: A Student From a UN School Called to “Kill Jews” and Become a Martyr,” May 22, 2026:
The footage was released by the organization UN Watch and shows a teenager identified as Kutaiba Hatab, a student at the UNRWA Jalazone School, delivering violent antisemitic messages on camera. In one of the most shocking clips, the young man states: “Those Jews, who are dogs, we will crush their heads.” In another part of the video, he adds: “I want to be a jihadist and kill Jews for Allah and become a martyr.” The recording sparked strong international outrage and once again put the role of UNRWA under scrutiny, an agency that has faced allegations for years of extremist indoctrination, antisemitism, and links to Palestinian terrorist organizations.
Quoted in JNS, “Scoop: In Webinar With Current and Former UN Staff, Anti-Israel Coalition Admits Secret Coordination With US-Sanctioned Group,” May 5, 2026:
Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, told JNS that “the mask has slipped” and that the “so-called ‘Hague Group’ is not a neutral coalition in the Netherlands defending international law but a coordinated political campaign guided behind closed doors by PLO-linked organizations in Ramallah, including Al Haq, a group under U.S. sanctions and tied to the terrorist PFLP.” “The Hague Group’s own officials admit these groups are present at every key meeting but deliberately hidden from view to preserve a veneer of legitimacy,” Neuer said. “This is not a good-faith diplomatic initiative. It’s a carefully constructed front.”
Quoted in the Times of Israel, “298 Pages of Evidence. The New York Times Ran the Other Story,” May 13, 2026:
The UN Watch has documented that Euro-Med disseminates claims that the IDF itself investigated and found no basis for, yet those claims were amplified by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights as credible evidence of possible war crimes.
Featured in Bet Magazine Musaico, “Corruption and Conflicts of Interest Among 13 UN Special Rapporteurs: The Latest Report by UN Watch Reveals,” May 27, 2026:
UN Watch, a non-governmental organization committed to ensuring that the United Nations upholds the founding principles of human rights, equality, and justice, published on May 26 “ From watchdogs to ideologues, ” a 104-page investigation revealing how the UN’s top human rights experts have abandoned their role as independent observers and are promoting politicized agendas that undermine the credibility of the international human rights system.
Featured in Nuevo Mundo Israelita, “Explosive Report From UN Watch: UN Human Rights Envoys Receive External Funding,” May 27, 2026:
“Alena Douhan, who defines Western sanctions against dictatorships as illegal, received $1.3 million from China, Russia, and Qatar,” Neuer stated. “No one even monitors how this money is used. If a judge received $1.3 million from one of the parties, they would be immediately disqualified and removed from office. If a journalist openly supported a terrorist group on social media, they would be fired immediately.” In another case, Ben Saul , the UN Special Rapporteur on the fight against terrorism and human rights, who had previously urged foreign governments to halt arms exports to Israel, allegedly received $150,000 from China, a country widely accused of systematic human rights violations against minorities. The report notes that Saul has consistently avoided speaking out about the persecution of the Uyghur Muslim minority in China, including their detention in “re-education camps,” and has not questioned how Beijing presents its actions as “fighting terrorism.”
Quoted in Australian Jewish News, “UN Puts Israel on Sexual Violence Blacklist Alongside Hamas,” May 29, 2026:
Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, described the decision as “an obscene inversion of victim and perpetrator” and condemned it as “another modern blood libel”.
Quoted in Jewish News, “UN Places Israeli Entities on Sexual Violence Blacklist Alongside Hamas,” May 28, 2026:
Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, also criticised the decision. “The UN has once again descended into moral bankruptcy by placing Israel on this blacklist, alongside Hamas, the very terrorists who systematically raped, mutilated, and sexually tortured Israeli women, men, and children on 7 October, and thereafter against the hostages in Gaza,” Neuer said. “Israel provided the UN with extensive documentation disproving the accusation. The decision strips the UN of any remaining credibility and reveals the extent to which it has been captured by those who hate Israel more than they hate rape as a weapon of war.”
Featured in IsraJ, “UN: Special Rapporteurs Paid by China, Qatar and Russia,” May 27, 2026:
Beyond individual cases, the report denounces a fundamental structural flaw: within the UN system, there is no formal procedure for recalling special rapporteurs. “The result is a powerful bloc of officials who enjoy absolute immunity from the law and justice,” Neuer summarizes. The report also points to the widespread practice of relying on unverified reports from NGOs and anonymous sources, data which then feeds into the decisions of international courts, governments and media around the world, without their reliability ever being questioned.
Quoted in Israel Netz, “Israel Cuts Ties With Guterres,” May 29, 2026:
In response, UN Watch called it an “obscene reversal of perpetrator and victim roles.” Executive Director Hillel Neuer stated that it was a deliberate distortion of what Hamas did to the Israelis. “This is yet another modern blood libel,” he said.
Quoted in World Israel News, “US Restores Sanctions on UN Rapporteur Francesca Albanese After Appeals Court Ruling,” May 24, 2026:
UN Watch, a Geneva-based human rights organization that has repeatedly criticized Albanese, welcomed the appeals court’s order. The group had filed an amicus brief opposing the preliminary injunction sought by Albanese’s family. “Today’s ruling is an important victory for accountability and for the principle that no UN official is above the law,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch. “The appeals court recognized that the sanctions should remain in force while the case is reviewed, after a lower court wrongly suspended measures aimed at protecting America and its allies from politically weaponized international prosecutions,” he said. UN Watch said its filing argued that Albanese’s activity went beyond speech and amounted to support for ICC prosecutorial efforts against Israeli and American officials.
Quoted in The Algemeiner, “Netanyahu, Sa’ar Rebuke Ben-Gvir Over Flotilla Video as Pro-Israel Voices Warn of Strategic, Diplomatic Damage,” May 20, 2026:
Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a pro-Israel NGO, addressed Netanyahu directly, writing: “Your Minister of Police Itamar Ben Gvir is a disgrace and a desecration. You need to fire him now.”
Quoted in Informazione Corretta, “US Court of Appeals Reinstates Sanctions Against Francesca Albanese,” May 27, 2026:
Among the protagonists of the campaign against Albanese is the organization UN Watch, which has been active in monitoring the United Nations for years . Its executive director, Hillel Neuer , greeted the decision in harsh tones: “We entered this case to demonstrate that actions have consequences. Today’s decision is a victory for the principle that no UN official is above the law. Francesca Albanese has engaged in clearly sanctionable conduct and now faces the weight of US sanctions. We will not rest until she is brought to justice.”
