GENEVA, May 10, 2022 — The UN's outgoing investigator on Palestine—who last month published a report saying "Israel commits apartheid"—has openly violated UN neutrality rules by receiving an award from the PLO. UN Watch is now calling on U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield and UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet to demand that Michael Lynk, a Canadian law professor, return the unethical prize. "President Mahmoud Abbas has awarded the Order of the Star of Jerusalem to Professor Michael Lynk, presented by Foreign Minister Riad Al Malki in Dublin," tweeted the PLO embassy in Ireland. Lynk only ended his term as Special Rapporteur on Palestine last week, after a six-year term. He was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council in 2016, despite Canada's objections about his lack of impartiality, which followed UN Watch's exposé. During Lynk's term over the past six years, UN Watch chronicled how he acted not as an impartial UN investigator, but rather like an agent for the PLO. He systematically turned a blind eye to Hamas and Fatah terrorism, and demonized Israel. Lynk insisted he was impartial, but now he isn't even pretending any more. The outgoing UN official accepted this award from Mahmoud Abbas at a time when his Fatah group participated in and praised the latest spate of Palestinian terrorist attacks that have killed 19 people in Israel. Abbas' Fatah-linked Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades distributed sweets in Gaza the evening after Thursday's terrorist attack in Elad that killed three Israeli fathers, orphaning 16 children. Lynk's acceptance of an award from one of the parties in a dispute that he was judging for the UN until last week sets a dangerous precedent. The entire credibility of the UN's system for country investigations is at stake. If the UN investigator of Palestine can get an award from Palestinian President Abbas, what is to stop the UN investigators on Iran, Belarus and North Korea from accepting awards from Ayatollah Khamenei, Lukashenko and Kim Jong-un? The UN human rights system is turning into a laughingstock, and dictators like Abbas, now in the 18th year of his 4-year term, get to corrupt the system.
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