UNHRC Chief Engaged in Campaign of “Systematic Harassment, Censorship and Discrimination” Against UN Watch, Complaint Alleges

UN Watch filed a complaint to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ office on October 6 alleging Eric Tistounet, who heads the UN Human Rights Council Branch at the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR), abused his position to engage in “systematic harassment, censorship and discrimination” against the NGO.

The complaint, which features testimony from whistleblower Emma Reilly, a former Human Rights Officer, alleged that Tistounet, a 61-year-old French national, “manipulated” speakers lists during UNHRC to move UN Watch’s statement toward “the end” of a speakers list or remove the statements altogether. The complaint also alleged that Tistounet requires staff members to send all UN Watch statements to him personally, and that in June-July 2019 he refused to publish four statements from UN Watch. After several attempts by UN Watch to procure an explanation from Tistounet for his actions, he claimed that the statements engaged in “personal attacks” and were irrelevant to the UNHRC. That September, Tistounet even accused UN Watch of sending defamatory statements. The complaint argued that UN Watch’s statements all described specific incidents in a factual manner, including an incident where China’s delegation interrupted UN Watch’s testimony on China’s treatment of the Uyghur Muslims. Another incident involved UN Watch citing “specific, public statements and events calling into question the independence of the Special Rapporteur on Palestine” at the time, per the complaint.

Additionally, the complaint alleged that the UNHRC provided China with the names of two Chinese dissidents that UN Watch had accredited to speak at the UNHRC, which the complaint argued violated the rules of the council.

The complaint also states that UN Watch obtained emails from 2007 showing that when sent a video of UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer being wrongly arrested because he was mistaken for a wanted murderer, Tistounet responded: “You made my day” and ordered his staff to post the video of the Neuer arrest to YouTube from a location outside of the UN offices.

“Mr. Tistounet effectively instructed staff working under his supervision to engage in dirty tricks, to breach clear UN rules prohibiting discrimination against and harassment of NGOs, and to take active measures to ensure they would not be identifiable as UN staff when they did so, in order to attempt to publicly humiliate and embarrass the UN Watch director by ensuring the photograph of his arrest in a case of mistaken identity was widely publicized without the context of the mistake on the part of the police,” the complaint stated.

The final allegation in the complaint is that OHCHR sent out a press release in 2017 accusing UN Watch of spreading an “outright lie” when tweeting that OHCHR had informed the Chinese government that Cao Shunli, a Chinese dissident, was going to speak at the council in 2013. Shunli was subsequently imprisoned by the Chinese government and died while in prison. The UN Watch complaint stated that the tweet in question was already deleted by the time the press release was sent out and that such terminology “is not typical of the diplomatic language generally used by OHCHR in reference even to the worst dictators and human rights abusers.” Tistounet was one of the main authors of the press release, per the complaint. The complaint also alleged that OHCHR has given “conflicting versions” of the events leading up to Shunli’s imprisonment and called for a thorough investigation into the matter.

The complaint argued that the documented instance are all violations of UN policy and that Guterres needs to investigate Tistounet’s conduct.

“We’re calling for remedial action to ensure that UN Watch may once again exercise its right to speak at the UN Human Rights Council on an equal basis with all other NGOs,” Neuer said in a statement. “There will be resistance from the bureaucracy as well as from dictatorships like China who despise UN Watch, and so we are calling on all democracies including the US, UK, Germany, France, Canada and others to publicly express their support by calling on Secretary General Guterres to launch an independent investigation.”

The UNHRC and Guterres’ office did not respond to the Journal’s requests for comment.