UN Watch Report Says China, Russia And Qatar Funded UN Experts Targeting Israel

UN Watch released a new report Tuesday accusing several UN human rights experts of accepting outside funding from authoritarian states while using their UN platforms to attack Israel, the United States and Western democracies.

The report, titled From Watchdogs to Ideologues, looks at 13 UN human rights experts and says the problem goes beyond individual officials. UN Watch argues the system allows political bias, outside funding and weak oversight to shape reports that are often treated as neutral UN findings. 

UN Special Procedures are independent experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council to report on human rights issues. Their reports and statements are often cited by governments, courts, media outlets, universities and NGOs, giving their findings influence far beyond the UN system.

The report’s sharpest funding allegation concerns Alena Douhan, the UN expert on unilateral coercive measures, a mandate focused largely on Western sanctions. UN Watch says her office received more than $1.3 million from China, Russia and Qatar, including nearly $980,000 from China, $265,000 from Russia and $50,000 from Qatar.

UN Watch says Ben Saul, the UN expert on counterterrorism and human rights, received $150,000 from China in 2024. The report accuses Saul of focusing heavily on Western counterterrorism policies while failing to issue statements on China’s persecution of Uyghurs, which Beijing has justified under the language of counterterrorism.

The report also says George Katrougalos, a former Greek foreign minister serving as the UN expert on a democratic and equitable international order, received $100,000 from China in 2025. UN Watch says that same year he praised Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “vision of openness, development and dialogue.”

“The UN’s human rights system was founded to protect victims of abuse. Instead, it is being manipulated to attack democracies and shield some of the world’s worst human rights violators,” UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer said.

The watchdog says Israel has been a central target of the pattern. According to the report, from October 7, 2023, through March 18, 2026, UN Special Procedures issued 148 statements targeting Israel. UN Watch says that figure was far higher than the number of statements on Russia’s war in Ukraine, Sudan’s civil war, Myanmar or Ethiopia.

The report argues that some UN experts repeatedly minimized or excused Hamas atrocities while accusing Israel of genocide, starvation and war crimes. UN Watch says the imbalance has given anti-Israel claims the appearance of UN authority, even when based on disputed or unverified allegations.

One of the most striking examples in the report is Tlaleng Mofokeng, the UN expert on the right to health. UN Watch says Mofokeng stated that “Hamas are not terrorists,” endorsed “armed struggle,” supported BDS and promoted the slogan “from the river to the sea.”

The report also says Mofokeng was fined by South Africa’s health authority for misconduct after attacking Neuer as “evil scum.” UN Watch argues that the UN took no meaningful disciplinary action against her.

Beyond the individual cases, UN Watch says the wider system allows outside funding, incomplete disclosure and weak oversight to shape the work of supposedly independent experts. The report calls for a ban on earmarked outside funding, mandatory disclosure of all external support, stronger evidentiary standards and external accountability mechanisms.

UN Watch urged democratic governments to stop treating compromised rapporteurs as neutral authorities, challenge flawed UN reports in international forums and create an external review system to track bias, funding and misconduct.

The watchdog said the credibility of the UN human rights system now depends on whether democratic states are willing to confront what it described as a politicized structure operating under the banner of human rights.