1. Saudi Arabia Chairs UN Women’s Rights Commission
Despite its abysmal record on women’s rights, Saudi Arabia chaired the 2025 session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, the “principal global body for gender equality and the empowerment of women.” Saudi Arabia still subjects women to legal discrimination including male guardianship controls. London’s Spectator reported: “As the superb organization UN Watch points out, the UN Commission on the Status of Women has never passed a single resolution regarding Saudi Arabia’s treatment of women - and now, grotesquely, has rewarded it with the chair.” Hillel Neuer was quoted by Women’s Agenda magazine: “By elevating a misogynistic regime to its highest women’s rights body, the UN betrays millions of female victims, in Saudi Arabia and worldwide.”
2. UN Launches Day to Defend Dictatorships, Framing Western Sanctions as Illegal
Annalena Baerbock (center), President of the United Nations General Assembly, chairs launch of “International Day against Unilateral Coercive Measures.” Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider
At the initiative of China, Cuba, Iran, and other authoritarian regimes, the United Nations in 2025 launched a new “International Day Against Unilateral Coercive Measures,” branding Western sanctions on tyrannies as violations of international law. The new annual event will boost a growing narrative at the UN designed to shield the world’s worst human rights abusers from accountability. The campaign is driven by UN Special Rapporteur Alena Douhan of Belarus, who has used her mandate to promote the talking points of sanctioned regimes. Outrageously, Annalena Baerbock, the President of the UN General Assembly who until recently was Germany’s foreign minister, joined the jackals. “Unilateral coercive measures imposed by a single State are in contravention of international law,” said Baerbock. Her opening remarks to the Orwellian event effectively condemned U.S. sanctions on Sudanese genocide commanders, Russian war financiers, and Chinese officials who run Uyghur prison camps, as “unlawful coercion.”
3. UN’s Anti-Western Rapporteur Received $1.3 Million From China, Qatar, Russia
UN Special Rapporteur Alena Douhan, who was installed by the UN Human Rights Council to go after Western countries for sanctioning dictatorships, received over $1.3 million from China, Qatar, and Russia, revealed Hillel Neuer when he confronted her in a dramatic UN debate. Absurdly, the UN chair rebuked Neuer for “personal attacks.” Cuba joined in, accusing UN Watch of “offensive, out-of-order, politicized comments.” UN Watch then exposed in detail the moral and financial corruption of Douhan’s Orwellian UN mandate, including her propaganda trips to Iran, China, Syria, Qatar, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, and, most recently, Cuba.
4. UN Elects Pakistan, Egypt, Iraq to Human Rights Council
In October 2025, the UN elected serial human rights abusers to its Human Rights Council, including Pakistan, Egypt, Iraq, and Vietnam. This sent a horrible message to many victims of these regimes, such as many thousands of political prisoners, persecuted journalists, and children subjected to child labor. Ahead of the election, a UN Watch coalition, including the Human Rights Foundation and the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights, issued a joint report opposing the candidacies of these unqualified states. Sadly, however, once again it is the inmates who are running the asylum.
5. Iran Rigged Its Own U.N. Human Rights Review
The Islamic Republic of Iran hijacked the U.N.’s first review of its human rights record since 2019 by flooding the process with regime-controlled front groups posing as NGOs. As exposed by UN Watch, IRGC-linked proxies seized speaking slots and jammed the written submissions with propaganda, crowding out real dissidents and victims. Nearly half of all NGO inputs came from government-run groups inside Iran, absurdly praising the regime as a champion of women’s rights while blaming abuses on Western sanctions. The result: a U.N. report poisoned by Tehran’s lies-now being waved by the mullahs as international “legitimacy” for repression.
6. China Creates UN “Friends of Global Governance” Bloc - With Iran, Cuba, North Korea…
China has launched a new “Group of Friends of Global Governance” at the United Nations, billed as a platform to export Beijing’s vision of “international fairness.” The initiative was officially established in New York on December 9, 2025, with nearly 40 founding members.
But the club’s roster reads less like a reform coalition and more like a rogues gallery of the world’s worst regimes: it includes Iran, Cuba, Pakistan, Venezuela, North Korea, Zimbabwe, and others that are routinely criticized for gross and systematic rights abuses.
Framed as an effort to “deepen cooperation” and “pool collective strength” under China’s Global Governance Initiative, the new bloc will likely be used to amplify Beijing’s agenda at the U.N. while undermining the influence of democracies, and the language, idea and mechanisms that protect individual freedoms.
7. “Evil Scum White Man”: UN Health Monitor Goes on Racist Tirade
South Africa’s Dr. Tlaleng Mofokeng, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, attacked UN Watch’s Hillel Neuer as an “evil scum white man,” after he called for her to be disciplined for tweeting that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should “F**ck off.” Facing mounting pressure over her expletive-filled rants, Mofokeng issued an apology that appeared to have been drafted by UN officials. She was later found guilty of misconduct by South Africa’s Health Professions Council, and slapped with a fine of 10,000 Rand, marking a rare rebuke of a UN mandate-holder for racist abuse.
2/ Doubling down on her violations of the UN Code of Conduct-which require to act with probity, integrity & good faith-Mofokeng unleashed a rant against me replete with racism, obscenities & insults. Her actions bring the UN into disrepute and @antonioguterres cannot stay silent. pic.twitter.com/Bce9gJYAg3
- Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) January 22, 2025
8. Iran & China Reps Elected to UN Human Rights Committee
In October, the UN elected representatives of the Chinese and Iranian regimes as expert human rights advisors. Ren Yisheng and Afsaneh Nadipour, ambassadors and long-time regime officials from Beijing and Tehran, were elected by acclamation to the UN Human Rights Council’s 18-member Advisory Committee. “The committee that once drafted the UN’s anti-racism convention has now been captured by those who embody repression and the silencing of truth. It’s an inversion of human rights-and a stain on the United Nations itself,” said Hillel Neuer. Ahead of the election, UN Watch revealed that China’s nominee had previously trashed a UN report on Beijing’s abuse of Uyghurs, while Tehran’s nominee had defended the the Islamic regime’s brutal crackdown on women’s rights protesters.
The Rise and Fall of Human Rights at the UN:
Jan. 15, 1964: UN Watch founder Morris Abram drafts UN anti-racism convention as member of UN human rights expert body.
Tomorrow: Loyal servants of Beijing & Tehran to be elected by acclamation to the successor UN human rights body. pic.twitter.com/srCKwTYgze
- Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 7, 2025
9. UN’s Francesca Albanese Condemned Across Italy For Issuing “Warning” to Journalists After Attack on La Stampa News Office
UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese was sharply rebuked across Italy’s political spectrum for issuing a “warning” to journalists following the violent Nov. 29th attack on La Stampa newspaper in Turin.
Pro-Palestinian protesters stormed the offices, dumped manure, ransacked desks, and chanted threats. Albanese said she condemned the acts, but then called them a “warning” for journalists to change their behaviour. “We must not commit acts of violence against anyone, but at the same time let this also be a warning to the press,” said Albanese, “to get back to doing their job, to put the facts at the center of their new work and, if they can afford it, even a minimum of analysis and contextualization.”
Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called the remarks dangerous: “It is very serious, that in face of violence against a newsroom, someone would go so far as to suggest that the responsibility lies-even if only in part-with the press itself. Violence cannot be justified. It cannot be minimized. It cannot be reversed.”
European Parliament Vice President Pina Picierno stated: “Violence is never a warning, and it condemns itself, without any ‘ifs or buts.’ Surprised but not too much, by the statements of Francesca Albanese. I hope she at least understands the gravity of the things she says.” Senator Filippo Sensi said: “Francesca Albanese’s words about the fascist attack on La Stampa horrify me…”
Carlo Bartoli, president of the Order of Journalists, labeled Albanese’s remarks “irresponsible and dangerous,” saying that “no justification, not even indirectly or with a superficial condemnation, can be granted to those who target journalists.”
The Italian Press Federation described Albanese’s words as “dangerous and pathetic,” saying that “they sound more like a threat than solidarity” and “create enormous risks at a time when Italian journalism is under pressure and threats against journalists are a daily occurrence.”
10. UNGA Condemns Israel 16 Times, Rest of World 12 Times
By the end of 2025, the UN General Assembly will have condemned Israel in 16 resolutions, compared to 12 on the rest of the world combined. There was one resolution each on North Korea, Iran, Syria, and Myanmar, six on Russia, and two on the United States. The UNGA failed to adopt any resolutions on most of the world’s worst abusers of human rights, including zero on China, Cuba, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, Vietnam, Turkey, and Zimbabwe.
