Washington, Aug 29 — Questions are mounting over the independence of several UN special rapporteurs, with counterterrorism rapporteur Ben Saul facing particular scrutiny, a report has detailed.
An independent mandate-holder is expected to assess both terrorist acts and state responses with equal rigour. But undisclosed funding, a documented pattern of anti-Western and anti-Israel framing, and Saul’s public statements following the April 2025 Pahalgam terror attack have raised serious questions about his impartiality, a report in the online magazine 'American Thinker' mentioned earlier this week.
On April 22, 2025, Pakistan-backed terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba gunned down 26 people, predominantly Hindu tourists, in a horrific terrorist attack in Pahalgam. Survivors recounted how the attackers allegedly identified victims by religion, asking them about their faith or ordering them to recite the Islamic declaration of faith, with those unable to do so being shot, it noted.
“Seven months later, on November 24, 2025, Saul co-signed a joint OHCHR statement with more than a dozen other UN experts. While the statement opened by condemning the Pahalgam attack, its substance focused almost entirely on India’s response. It cited unverified reports and it characterised demolitions of properties linked to terror suspects as collective punishment, and described the blocking of social media accounts as disproportionate,” the report detailed.
“What the statement did not do was engage with why those measures were taken: a massacre in which victims were separated by religion and executed, carried out by a Pakistan-based terror group with a documented record of cross-border attacks. Indian officials have pointed out that the properties demolished belonged to identified, proven militants, not uninvolved residents, and that the security response followed an attack explicitly designed to provoke communal violence,” Moroccan researcher and journalist, Fatima El Hashimi, wrote in 'American Thinker'.
The report cited a May 2026 study by Geneva-based UN Watch, titled 'From Watchdogs to Ideologues', which examined 13 UN Special Procedures mandate-holders and flagged “politicised appointments, selective targeting of democracies and troubling funding arrangements.” With regard to Saul, it highlighted “one-sided criticism of Western powers and a documented silence on China’s own record”.
Referring to the findings, the report noted that Saul’s office received $150,000 from China in 2024. UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer, the 'American Thinker' report stated, had raised questions over his independence in an interview with Sky News Australia, asking how Saul could claim to be independent while his office accepted money from Beijing.
“The funds went to Saul’s office rather than his personal accounts, but the report noted a lack of detailed public accounting. Crucially, Saul’s office has issued no statements condemning China’s mass detention of Uyghur Muslims — the same ‘counterterrorism’ framing that falls squarely within his mandate," Fatima El Hashimi wrote in 'American Thinker'.
According to the report, UN Watch’s findings go beyond the China funding question, accusing Saul of whitewashing antisemitism, defending extremists and engaging in one-sided anti-Israel rhetoric that overlooks Israel’s legitimate security concerns.