United Nations and Human Rights

During a Friday session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Council President Ambassador Sidharto Reza Suryodipuro cut off a prerecorded statement by Anne Bayefsky, a U.S.-based NGO representative, after she accused several senior UN and International Criminal Court officials of antisemitism and of covering up Hamas and Palestinian abuses. Bayefsky, who directs the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, had named UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese—already under U.S. sanctions ordered by Secretary of State Marco Rubio in July 2025—as well as former UN commissioner Navi Pillay, commissioner Chris Sidoti and ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan, whom she cited in connection with allegations of rape as a weapon of war and, in Khan’s case, unresolved sexual-assault claims he has denied. Suryodipuro ruled her remarks 'derogatory, insulting and inflammatory,' said they 'exceeded the limits of tolerance and respect' and terminated the video before she could criticize UN High Commissioner Volker Türk’s reporting on Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 atrocities. Bayefsky, the only American NGO speaker on that agenda item, told Fox News the move shows 'free speech is non-existent' at the Human Rights Council and argued that the UN is shielding its own officials from accountability. The clash adds a new front to U.S. battles with UN human-rights mechanisms over Israel and Gaza, with critics on social media seizing on the incident as evidence of double standards on hate speech and of institutional resistance to scrutiny of UN insiders already facing U.S. sanctions or misconduct allegations.