As of 2021, 140 judgments of the European Court of Human Rights referred to reports by UN special rapporteurs.“[Special Rapporteurs] are treated by leading institutions as neutral experts and are regularly invited to address prestigious international forums and academic institutions.
Significantly, the UN affiliation enables them to leverage that authority across social media and international media appearances, where their statements are presented as reflecting the voice or expertise of the United Nations.” — From the UN Watch report, “How Politicized UN Rapporteurs are Subverting Human Rights.”
“Neutral”?! This inversion of reality is a huge problem. What so many of these UN rapporteurs do could not be more sordid.
Special rapporteurs Ben Saul and Alena Douhan, for instance, have both received generous funding from Communist China.
“[N]umerous of the so-called UN human rights experts who get quoted every day by Reuters, the New York Times and other major media… are taking money direct funding from China, Russia and Qatar. I’ll give a few examples…. We know the extreme case of Francesca Albanese who’s the de facto spokesperson for Hamas, spreads Hamas lies. There’s no accountability. We made complaints. The chair of the UN Committee is himself a human rights expert who himself took $50,000 from China.” — UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer, May 28, 2026.
“No Palestinian applauded rape in Gaza. No independent investigation found that rape took place on the 7th of October,” Alsalem lied in November 2025 — even though UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict Pramila Patten released a 23-page report in March 2024, which concluded that there was “clear and convincing” evidence of systematic sexual violence committed by Hamas operatives against Israeli women both on October 7 (much of it filmed by the terrorists themselves) and later against hostages held in the Gaza Strip.
The contents of UN Watch’s report have received no coverage in mainstream media.
A recent report by UN Watch, “How Politicized UN Rapporteurs are Subverting Human Rights,” found that 13 of the “special rapporteurs” of the United Nations Human Rights Council, supposedly the UN’s top human rights experts, “have abandoned the role of independent monitors and are advancing politicized agendas that erode the credibility of the international human rights system.”
This report matters; the UN’s special rapporteurs wield substantial influence. According to the report:
“While their findings are not legally binding, they can significantly shape public debate, influence UN discussions, and inform how governments, media, and civil society interpret a wide range of policy issues and alleged human rights violations. Their reports are widely treated as credible and authoritative by institutions such as the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, as well as by governments, media outlets, universities, and civil society actors worldwide.”
As of 2021, 140 judgments of the European Court of Human Rights referred to reports by UN special rapporteurs. The number is staggering. The report continues:
“[Special Rapporteurs] are treated by leading institutions as neutral experts and are regularly invited to address prestigious international forums and academic institutions. Significantly, the UN affiliation enables them to leverage that authority across social media and international media appearances, where their statements are presented as reflecting the voice or expertise of the United Nations.”
“Neutral”?! This inversion of reality is a huge problem. What so many of these UN rapporteurs do could not be more sordid: Almost all of them harbor what UN Watch calls “systemic anti-Western ideological bias,” many of them explicitly refrain from criticizing the world’s most authoritarian states, and they are obsessed with demonizing Israel. Many of them have been bought by the world’s most authoritarian states.
Special rapporteurs Ben Saul and Alena Douhan, for instance, have both received generous funding from Communist China.
According to UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer:
“[N]umerous of the so-called UN human rights experts who get quoted every day by Reuters, the New York Times and other major media… 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… a word to say about that. Instead, he attacks Israel and America every single day.
“There’s another UN expert, her name is Alena Douhan. She received $1.3 million from China, Russia and Qatar. And guess what? She wrote reports praising shielding, apologizing for China, Russia and Qatar. She went on a Chinese-organized video saying everything is fine with the Uyghurs. She visited China to say everything is fine with the Uyghurs, blame the West. And she took $1.3 million…. Extreme ideological bias in some cases financial corruption in other cases it’s an ideological extremism with no accountability.”
Francesca Albanese, “Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” is one of the most extreme examples of how rotten the UN human rights system has become. According to Neuer:
“We know the extreme case of Francesca Albanese who’s the de facto spokesperson for Hamas, spreads Hamas lies. There’s no accountability. We made complaints. The chair of the UN Committee is himself a human rights expert who himself took $50,000 from China.”
Reem Alsalem, a Jordanian woman who is “Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls,” is also among the most problematic human rights “experts” of the UN. Nearly three years after October 7, she continues to deny that Israeli women were sexually assaulted and raped by Hamas and other Gazan terrorists during their invasion of southern Israel on October 7, 2023. Not only that, but in a March 2024 interview, Alsalem even claimed with a straight face that she had not heard about missiles being fired on Israeli cities by Hamas from the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah from Lebanon.
“No Palestinian applauded rape in Gaza. No independent investigation found that rape took place on the 7th of October,” Alsalem lied in November 2025 — even though UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict Pramila Patten released a 23-page report in March 2024, which concluded that there was “clear and convincing” evidence of systematic sexual violence committed by Hamas operatives against Israeli women both on October 7 (much of it filmed by the terrorists themselves) and later against hostages held in the Gaza Strip.
In April, Amsalem repeated her lies, saying that the sexual violence against Israelis on October 7 constituted “misinformation” used by Israel to “justify genocide.”
Amsalem received $70,000 from Saudi Arabia in 2024, and the next year $100,000 from the Gulf Cooperation Council, which comprises Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates. Last month she defended receiving the funds by claiming “that the contributions were disclosed under UN transparency rules, administered by the UN human rights office, and did not influence her work,” according to UN Watch.
Alice Jill Edwards, “Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment,” on the other hand, has been praised by UN Watch for her efforts to document and speak up about the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7, 2023. Unfortunately, her colleagues tried to bully her into silence. According to UN Watch:
“U.N. special rapporteur Alice Edwards—one of just two experts to sign a statement on the October 7 atrocities—says: ‘There was a campaign [by other rapporteurs] to prevent that letter going out. Weeks of being bullied and deterred from writing it, telling me everything in it was false.'”
Speaking on a panel at University College London on June 9, 2026, Edwards said:
“That letter is a set of allegations of what happened on October 7; it was only signed by the Special Rapporteur on summary extrajudicial killings and me. Some other special rapporteurs and working groups had wanted to sign on, but they also had been bullied by others not to sign on, and there was this concerted effort for this letter not to put on record some allegations that had been received. There was a campaign to prevent that letter from going out. There were weeks of being bullied and deterred from writing it and telling me that everything in it was false.”
Edwards also visited the Israeli communities that had been attacked, met hostage families, and watched the footage filmed by the terrorists themselves during the massacre. “I understand I’m the only Special Rapporteur who has ever requested to go to the Israeli mission to see the video and the documented evidence,” she said.
The contents of UN Watch’s report have received no coverage in mainstream media. No human rights NGOs have taken the least interest, nor has any politician, except for one: Lord Alton of Liverpool, who is chair of the UK Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights, asked the UK government for its assessment of the report’s damning findings about the 13 UN special rapporteurs and whether it supports UN Watch’s calls to hold the them accountable and ban outside funding for them. He received a response that was more than embarrassing, but extremely telling about the kind of governments that have ascended to power in the West. Baroness Chapman of Darlington, Minister of State (Development) answered in a written statement:
“The UK continues to welcome the crucial role played by the United Nations’ network of special rapporteurs and experts in several countries and regions around the world, as well as on specific issues of concern. However, in order to maintain the confidence of the international community in those roles, it is important that each rapporteur or expert upholds the highest standards of independence and objectivity, and we will always make clear when we believe any individual has fallen short of those standards.”
Oh, really?
inyangenewseditor@gmail.comÂ
