3 October 2022: I reveal UN censorship of NGOs
The UN has gone to extraordinary lengths to close down any discussion of the policy of handing names to Beijing, including censoring statements of the NGO UN Watch, and preventing them from taking the floor at the Human Rights Council. My witness statement is here.
10 November 2021: Le Monde publishes profile, UN fires me
Following a well-researched article in Le Monde, in which an anonymous UN source admitted the UN has absolutely no idea whatsoever whose names were handed to China and how many times, claiming a convenient “theft” of a list that was never in fact maintained, the UN decided to fire me.
The UN did not address a single one of my detailed legal arguments. I am not accused of lying, but only of embarassing the UN, and showing no remorse for believing that complicity in genocide is wrong.
26 August 2021: UN continues disinformation campaign, lying to diplomats
In an article published about the UN efforts to fire me in order to cover up its policy on handing names to Beijing, the US delegation to the UN repeated almost verbatim the statement of Nada al Nashif, Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, in her intimidation effort of June 2020. It is clear that the UN continues to simply lie to diplomats about this policy. I responded, addressing the falsities line by line and, unlike the UN, providing evidence. My letter is here.
17 August 2021: More than 30 NGOs call on UN to investigate policy and protect me as a whistleblower
More than 30 NGOs wrote to UN Secretary-General calling on him to protect me as a whistleblower, and to finally investigate the UN Human Rights Office policy of handing names to Beijing. The letter is available here.
31 July 2021: UN finds whistleblower guilty of whistleblowing
After 9pm on a Friday in the middle of the summer break, the UN:
- Purported to remove my status and protection as a recognised whistleblower, against all UN rules (the report recognising me as a whistleblower is here. No investigation was ever conducted);
- Issued a court judgment reaffirming that the court has no power to examine the UN’s public misrepresentation of the policy of handing names to Beijing, but awarding me compensation for the public “inaccuracies”;
- Found me guilty of whistleblowing.
The report finding me guilty of blowing the whistle is here. The UN has many, many rules against lying. I am not charged under a single one. The UN, as part of its standard playbook of defaming whistleblowers, seeks to distract attention from complicity in international crimes by accusing me of “abusive and intimidating” behaviour in response to the investigation. This is based on the fact that I questioned the legality of the investigation, notably the conflicts of interest of the two hand-picked “investigators.” I am therefore publishing my letters to them so you can judge for yourself if they were abusive or intimidating. Those are here and here.
16 June 2021: UN defrauded European Union to pay for retaliation
When I was forcibly transferred to a non-existent post in October 2019, the UN lied to both member states and even the UN Dispute Tribunal that I was given a job with functions. The UN also claimed to the Tribunal that the funding of the alleged post was as stable as my previous post in the Human Rights Council Branch (that post would require a resolution of the General Assembly to abolish). In reality, the UN’s internal staff tables, which an anonymous source released to me on 16 June show that the UN took my salary from a project funded by the European Union. The funds were donated specifically for the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. I have never worked on that issue in the UN, and neither have I ever worked on migration, the other issue the UN sometimes claims I work on.
The UN will have had to provide a report on how the funds were used, and it is extremely unlikely that the report admitted they were used to directly pay for retaliation against a whistleblower.
14 June 2021: UN’s preferred judge rules UN does not have to clarify policy
In court, the UN argues names have to be shared with China because the list of people applying to engage with UN human rights mechanisms, which is never published, is somehow a public document weeks in advance. In public, the UN alternates between outraged denials it ever handed over names, claims it stopped and occasional admissions.
I asked the UN’s preferred judge, who replaced the independent judge who actually heard my case in 2019, to make the UN clarify if its court position from 2019, admitting the policy is ongoing, is still its legal position. She refused. She also claimed the finding that I am a whistleblower who has faced retaliation is irrelevant to a case in which I am literally challenging a false, public statement by the UN that I am not a whistleblower and have never faced retaliation.
The judge previously said she needed further written submissions, having simply listened to recordings. Now, she magically does not. The UN Appeals Tribunal did not even address my legal arguments in appeal of her previous judgment (that she issued judgment prior to expiry of a deadline she had set, and that she based her judgment on a document not even on file in the case, dated three months after closing argument), so I am sure she feels confident she does not have to even consider the evidence.
Expect judgment in the UN’s favour, likely with further gratuitous defamation, within days.
4 June 2021: Unilateral removal of whistleblower status to enable me to be fired
Early on 4 June 2021, a date presumably chosen because UN managers knew China-watchers would be busy with the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre and the opening of the Uyghur Tribunal, the UN unilaterally overturned the finding that I am a whistleblower.
The UN cover-up, as ever, lacks even the most basic competence. Compare and contrast these emails:
- In January 2021, I appealed to the Alternate Chair of the Ethics Panel of the United Nations, Leanne Kinsella of UNFPA, to do her job as Alternate Chair and take measures for my immediate protection. She refused to do so, explicitly noting “I am not a party to the determination on your matter, as I recused myself due to the claims you made in respect of me.” Email here.
- On 4 June 2021, almost a year after I was determined to be a whistleblower (here), without the investigation required under the rules even beginning, but only days after I published the evidence of the UN policy of handing names of dissidents to Beijing on this website, Ms Kinsella has apparently completely forgotten her conflict. She is now more than willing, without any authority in any policy to do so, to cancel the previous finding in order to substitute her own view that I should not be protected. Email here.
The UN cover-ups rely on the silence of public interest whistleblowers, and the sheer levels of corruption never entering the public domain. The Ethics Officers do not act with independence, but on instructions to ensure the cover-up remains effective. They and UN managers are so certain they can act with complete impunity that they do not even bother to keep track of their own excuses for failing to protect public interest whistleblowers.
Member states must insist on real reform.