Former UN rights official accuses Nobel laureate Pillay of handing dissident names to China

The allegations (Reilly's public claims)

Reilly alleges that during Pillay's tenure as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN human rights office provided Chinese authorities with the names of more than 50 dissidents, and that she first raised warnings about the practice internally in 2013. She also claims that relatives of those dissidents later testified in court that their family members were intimidated, arbitrarily detained, tortured, disappeared, or even died in camps, and that staffers who handed over the names were promoted while she was fired for speaking up. All of this is Reilly's unilateral public accusation.

What others say

UN Watch issued a statement on October 9 condemning the Nobel Committee's decision; executive director Hillel Neuer said the committee owes an explanation to the dissidents "whose names were handed to China." Uyghur human rights activist Dolkun Isa also issued a statement saying information about him as a human rights defender was shared with the Chinese government without his consent — "a profound betrayal of trust by an institution that should have protected us" — and demanded a full accounting of who authorized it. The UN has in the past defended the practice by saying the individuals had already publicly disclosed their plans to attend and that precautions were taken; as of publication, no public response from Pillay herself to these renewed allegations has been seen.

All of the above are public accusations and statements by the parties involved. The allegations have not been independently verified; we report them as claims without judging their truth.