UN WATCH
Chief of UN Human Rights Council Staff Targeted Watchdog, Leaked Emails Reveal
October 7, 2022

The top official at the UN Human Rights Council stands accused of ordering his staff to manipulate speakers lists and engage in other illicit activities to block speeches by a watchdog that is the UN body’s staunchest critic, according to explosive new testimony from a UN whistle-blower, and from the release of a first tranche of leaked internal emails. In a 30-page legal complaint filed in New York today with Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the independent non-governmental organization UN Watch charged Eric Tistounet, the chief of the Human Rights Council branch of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, with “systematic harassment, censorship and discrimination.” Tistounet, a French national, helped negotiate the creation of the council in 2006, has overseen its running ever since, and is considered its institutional memory and central figure. READ MORE