UN Watch in the News

"...Thanks to a just-released report by U.N. Watch, a Geneva-based monitor of the United Nations, we know the council has not introduced, much less adopted, a single resolution condemning Iran. Nor has it held a single special session on the crisis. Nor has it mandated any investigations..." - Steve Huntley, "Guess who missed Iran's atrocities?," Chicago Sun-Times, February 26, 2010.

"...Unfortunately, what we’ve seen in the last decade and longer is the politicization of the Commission on Human Rights and now [its replacement], the Human Rights Council..." - UN Watch chairman Alfred Moses quoted in E.B. Solomont, "NGO: UNHRC gives impunity to violators," The Jerusalem Post, February 26, 2010.

"...If the Human Rights Council is serious about tackling Iran’s wide-scale and escalating attacks on its own citizens – and this an open question – then it must use the tools at its disposal to convene an emergency session; adopt a resolution condemning the violations and establishing an international inquiry into Iran’s post-election arrests, rapes, show trials and executions; and reinstate the permanent post of a special rapporteur to monitor and report on the Iranian government’s compliance with international human right covenants..." - UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer quoted in Tovah Lazaroff, " Iran under fire at UNHRC," The Jerusalem Post, February 16, 2010.

"...At U.N. Watch, a nongovernmental watchdog in Geneva, executive director Hillel Neuer keeps a tally of activities at the council--where current membership already includes such abusers as Russia, China and Saudi Arabia. Neuer says that since the council was launched in mid-2006, it has issued 33 condemnatory resolutions. Of these, half a dozen have concerned Burma and North Korea. The other 27 have focused on condemning Israel, while absolving its attackers, including the Iranian-backed terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah..." - UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer cited in "Don't let Iran on the Human Rights Council," Forbes, February 11, 2010.

"...Increasingly, rulers who routinely breach the U.N. Charter's principles of freedom, equality, and nonviolence are using the world body to win credibility and prestige...." - Hillel Neuer, Newsweek, Letters, February 8, 2010.

"...Activist group U.N. Watch has described the council's two-day special session on Haiti as 'a harmful waste of the organization's precious time, resources, and moral capital.' U.N. Watch says the council 'has no budget, authority or expertise on humanitarian aid' and ignores more pressing human rights problems...." - UN Watch quoted in "UN Rights Body Concerned For Haiti’s Children," Associated Press, January 28, 2010.

"...For the NGO UN Watch, the meeting today is a 'waste of time, resources and moral capital of the United Nations.' 'It will not feed or heal one Haitian. Rather, it will waste $200,000 (in organizing the event) that could be used for other purposes,' said Hillel Neuer, executive director of the organization. He said the event is to show that the Council is doing something, while violations in Iran, Cuba and China would go unpunished..." - UN Watch quoted in Brazil's largest daily. Jamil Chade, "Haiti rejeita proposta brasileira na ONU," Estadao de S. Paulo, January 27, 2010.

"...It is one critical voice that can take advantage of the spotlight that the U.N. provides, the podium the U.N. provides and to be the voice for the voiceless. And, the governments at the Human Rights Council, the majority in the Human Rights Council oppose this because they do not want scrutiny of their human rights abuses. And, it is time for the international community to say no to this. It is time for the human rights community to try and make a difference and bring back the monitors who could be a voice for those victims..." - UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer quoted in Lisa Schlein, "Rights group want Congo back on UN watch list," Voice of America, December 24, 2009.

"...Las últimas informaciones sobre las atrocidades en RDC confirman lo que advertimos el año pasado al Consejo de Derechos Humanos de la ONU...El Consejo de Seguridad vota esta semana si extender la misión de paz en RDC, y debe asumir sus responsabilidades y restablecer una voz dedicada a los Derechos Humanos e independiente para denunciar el sufrimiento de las víctimas" - UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer quoted in "Piden a la ONU que restablezca un observador independiente en RDC," Europa Press, December 23, 2009.

"...The Geneva-based U.N. Watch said a total of 50 groupings had signed the appeal to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and human rights chief Navi Pillay. The appeal, issued late on Tuesday, said signatories were "appalled to learn of the serious violations committed by the Congolese government in recent weeks" which they said included summary executions, torture, arbitrary arrests and rape...." - UN Watch quoted in "Groups call for UN rights monitor for Congo," Reuters, December 23, 2009.

"...An Algerian-headed committee is advocating changes to an international covenant on discrimination to grant Islamic governments free rein to silence dissenters in the name of a supposed human right against “defamation of religion.” But questioning or criticism of Islamic orthodoxies by individuals — religious dissenters, human rights activists or journalists — is protected speech, and an essential part of religious and political freedom..." - Hillel Neuer, "A Swiss ban on minarets," New York Times, Letters, December 18, 2009.

"...It’s a council where it has one agenda item for human rights violations for any of 192 countries in the world and a permanent agenda item for condemning what it calls Israeli violations — one agenda item for the world, one agenda item to attack Israel..." - Hillel Neuer quoted in Joel Goldenberg, "Goldstone report ‘travesty of justice’: UN Watch’s Hillel Neuer," The Suburban, December 16, 2009.

"...The council has been awful," Hillel Neuer, director of U.N. Watch in Geneva, told FoxNews.com, saying he hopes the Obama administration doesn't think it's going to seek reform through "consensus" on the panel. "I'm confident that Donahoe, given her background, understands that and will take a vigorous approach to holding abusers to account..." - Hillel Neuer, "Tough UN critic tapped to represent US on Human Rights Council," Fox News, November 22, 2009.

"...Last month's session of the U.N.'s "Committee on Complementary Standards" became only the latest salvo in the pan-U.N. Islamic campaign to alter international human-rights law by criminalizing "defamation of religion" as a form of racism..." - Hillel Neuer, "U.S. Defends Freedom of Expression," Wall Street Journal Asia, Letters, November 18, 2009.

"...Goldstone has consistently evaded any accountability under the law applicable to international fact-finding missions, by repeatedly declaring that his panel was 'not judicial'...But this is a red herring. The simple truth is that his fact-finding mission was legally subject to a well-established set of standards. Sadly, however, these were ignored..." - Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch, quoted in E.B. Solomont, "Gold vs Goldstone," The Jerusalem Post, November 12, 2009.

"...Hillel [N]euer, executive director of UN Watch, a Geneva-based human rights group, Thursday called the draft proposal 'the latest salvo in a pervasive campaign waged by Islamic states at the UN to declare that the primary victim of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks was Islam...In fact, the victims were some 3,000 Americans and others, and those who perpetrated the mass murder acted in the name of a radical Islamist ideology...'" - "Groups protest UN debate on 'defamation' of religion," Deutsche Presse-Agentur, November 12, 2009.

"...While developed countries need scrutinizing too, the UN has very limited resources more than 80 percent of which are paid for by western taxpayers, and there are millions of human rights abuse victims who - as UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer recently highlighted in an interview - have "no one speaking out for them" at all..." - Steven Edwards, "Canada presses UN investigators to focus on worst cases," National Post, October 29, 2009.

 
"...In testimony volunteered to the human rights council (and ignored), Colonel Richard Kemp, a British commander in Bosnia and Afghanistan, stated: "The Israeli Defence Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare...'" - Quoting from UN Watch’s Oct. 16, 2009 speech to the UNHRC Special Session on the Goldstone report, as delivered by Col. Richard Kemp. Harold Evans, "A moral victory," The Guardian, October 20, 2009.

"...While UN rights nabobs are obsessing over the bureaucratese found on our federal government's forms, there is -- as pointed out by Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch in Geneva -- no one who 'will speak for the two million black African migrants persecuted in Libya, the ethnic minorities oppressed in Tibet or the women subjugated in Saudi Arabia...'" - "The wrong target," National Post, October 19, 2009.

“...Adoption of this dangerous text will trigger proceedings toward the indictment and prosecution of Israeli leaders and officers in the International Criminal Court,” said the NGO’s executive director Hillel Neuer. 'What’s at stake is the very survival of democratic societies under the assault of terrorists – enemies of human rights who cynically invoke its protective cover.'” - Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch, quoted in Patrick Goodenough, "Israel took unprecedented steps to safeguard civilians, says British officer," CNS News, October 16, 2009.