Eric Tistounet has appeared to be obsessed with silencing UN Watch’s voice and with what looks like his personal vendetta against UN Watch’s executive director, Hillel Neuer
UN Watch Files Complaint with UNSG Guterres Alleging Censorship and Discrimination
By Joseph A. Klein, CFP United Nations Columnist ——Bio and Archives--October 7, 2022
UN Watch, a non-governmental organization (NGO) accredited by the Economic and Social Council that monitors the United Nations’ adherence to its stated human rights principles, filed a complaint on October 6th with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. The complaint charges that Eric Tistounet, chief of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) staff, has systematically harassed, censored, and discriminated against UN Watch over a course of at least 15 years. Mr. Tistounet’s conduct, UN Watch alleges, is in violation of the United Nations Charter and the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, as well as of UN staff rules, procedures, and practices.
UN Watch is the UNHRC’s fiercest critic
UN Watch is the UNHRC’s fiercest critic. This NGO has pointed out repeated instances over the years when the Human Rights Council fell far short of observing the human rights principles upon which it was supposedly established. UN Watch has also, year after year, shined a light on the election of some of the world’s worst human rights abusers in the world to join the UNHRC as members. At the same time, this dysfunctional UN body continues to single out Israel, the only true democracy in the Middle East, for repeated condemnations.
In addition, UN Watch has brought high profile dissidents to address the Human Rights Council, from China, Cuba, Russia and elsewhere. Various dictatorial regimes have in turn pressured Tistounet's office for help, which obliged. For example, Tistounet has been accused of putting in place a UN policy of handing over to China in advance the names of dissidents registered to speak at the UNHRC.
Eric Tistounet has appeared to be obsessed with silencing UN Watch’s voice and with what looks like his personal vendetta against UN Watch’s executive director, Hillel Neuer. He has acted like Captain Ahab, who relentlessly pursued Moby Dick. But instead of using a harpoon to try and destroy his foe as Captain Ahab did, Tistounet allegedly abused his considerable power to censor UN Watch, smear Mr. Neuer, and insulate the UNHRC from any legitimate criticism.
UN Watch based its complaint in part on a sworn statement by a whistle-blower, Ms. Emma Reilly, and from the release of a first tranche of leaked internal emails. Ms. Reilly was formerly a Human Rights Officer at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). She led the development of its online sign-up system and worked closely with Tistounet until she was forced out of the UN Secretariat for speaking truth to power.
Tistounet’s “action of manipulating lists of speakers to deny UN Watch the right to speak on an equal basis with all other NGOs violates”
Ms. Reilly detailed, according to UN Watch’s filing, how “Mr. Tistounet systematically ordered his staff at the UNHRC secretariat to violate UN rules in order to surreptitiously cancel or demote the legitimate participation of UN Watch in Human Rights Council debates.” This scheme was allegedly accomplished via instructions conveyed by Tistounet to Ms. Reilly and other OHCHR staff working on NGO liaison to “manipulate lists of speakers to remove UN Watch, or give [UN Watch] less visibility.”
At times, discussions at UNHRC meetings were arbitrarily cut off just before it was UN Watch’s turn to speak.
Emma Reilly recounted in her sworn statement her own personal interactions with Tistounet in which he “repeatedly instructed me to move UN Watch further down the list for interactive dialogues and panel discussions, such that they would fall below the maximum number of NGO participants and lose the opportunity to speak.” She added, “I consistently opposed such instructions. Initially, I based my refusal on the right to freedom of speech, pointing out that a human right is only as strong as its application to people with whom we may disagree. I soon realised that Mr. Tistounet did not care about such arguments, so instead switched to a strategy of arguing that he may be found out and suffer personal consequences should a formal complaint result.”
Initially, Tistounet reacted to Ms. Reilly’s warning by instructing her to take steps to obscure his scheme to manipulate the speaking lists to undermine UN Watch’s right to participate in the UNHRC’s meetings on the same level as other NGO’s. Ultimately, Tistounet seemed to throw caution to the wind as he allegedly became more and more brazen in his harassment campaign against UN Watch.
UN Watch alleged that Tistounet’s “action of manipulating lists of speakers to deny UN Watch the right to speak on an equal basis with all other NGOs violates” the UN Charter’s requirement that international civil servants demonstrate the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity. The Standards of Conduct of the International Civil Service lay out the requirement of impartiality as inherent to a demonstration of integrity, which Tistounet flouted according to UN Watch’s complaint.
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UN Watch demanded in its complaint that the Secretary General create an independent investigation, and that he immediately suspend Tistounet from his functions for the duration of the investigation
During the UNHRC’s 50th session held in June and July of 2022, UN Watch claimed that it had “registered promptly for 36 debates with UN experts known as interactive dialogues, yet received zero. Other NGOs based in Geneva that requested far less debates received as many as 10 speaking slots.” Tistounet gave slots to several Chinese state-sponsored so-called “NGOs” while shutting out UN Watch completely, the complaint alleges.
Ms. Reilly made a number of formal reports and requests for investigation of the various acts of misconduct aimed at UN Watch that she had personally observed, but she got nowhere. “The UN in all cases declined to investigate,” she said in her sworn statement.
UN Watch finally got to the point where it could no longer tolerate the hostility it was confronted with, which it felt undermined its basic rights of freedom of speech and due process. Hence its escalation of the matter directly to Secretary General Guterres with the submission of its formal complaint.
UN Watch demanded in its complaint that the Secretary General create an independent investigation, and that he immediately suspend Tistounet from his functions for the duration of the investigation. "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," said UN Watch’s executive director Neuer. "There will be resistance from the bureaucracy as well as from dictatorships like China who despise UN Watch, so it will be essential that democracies like the US, UK, Germany, France, Canada and others publicly express their support by calling on Secretary General Guterres to launch an independent investigation," Mr. Neuer added.
At the UN’s daily press briefing on October 7th, I asked the Secretary General’s spokesperson whether Secretary General Guterres had received UN Watch’s complaint and whether there would be an investigation as UN Watch demands. The spokesperson replied: “let me see if something has been officially registered and what will happen to that, what process will be followed.”
Stay tuned.
