At UN,
Logic of
Egypt's
Jailing of AJ
Staff Lives
On, Censorship
Alliance
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, June
24 -- While
Egypt's sentencing
of the three
Al Jazeera
journalists to
seven years in
prison is being
condemned in
the UN,
sometimes
sincerely and
sometimes
self-servingly,
Egypt's logic
is alive and
well.
In the UN Press
Briefing Room
on April 15,
2014, outgoing
French
Ambassador Gerard
Araud told a
Lebanese
reporter, "You
are not a
journalist,
you are an
agent" --
Egypt's logic.
Inner City
Press on
behalf of the
Free
UN Coalition
for Access
asked
UN spokesman
Stephane
Dujarric if he
would convey
to Araud and
the French
mission the
stated
position that
reporters
should be
treated with
respect.
Dujarric declined.
The old United
Nations
Correspondents
Association
has "dragged
its feet" on
any defense of
its own dues
paying member
from Lebanon.
But now it
schedules an
"Emergency
Town Hall
meeting" on
the Al Jazeera
case.
In fact, UNCA
executive
committee
members have
tried to get
reporting they
didn't like
removed from
the Internet,
about a financial
link between
Sri Lanka's
ambassador and
UNCA's head
and the latter
unilaterally
holding an
"UNCA"
screening of a
Rajapaksa
government
film denying
war crimes.
When censorship
failed, UNCA
executive
committee
members tried
to get the investigative
Press thrown
out of the UN
- one of them
later made a Digital
Millennium
Copyright Act
sworn
statement to
Google that
his "for the
record"
complaint was
copyrighted
- and got it
banned from
search:
censorship.
Now this UN
Censorship
Alliance
schedules an
"Emergency
Town Hall
meeting" on
the Al Jazeera
case. Watch
this site.
On
June 24 the UN
Development
Program, which
under
Helen
Clark is
moving for
massive
layoffs of its
staff,
held a press
conference in
UN
Headquarters,
very rare for
UNDP.
But avoiding
questions on
layoffs, UNDP
set
aside the
first question
for
Pamela Falk of
CBS, for UNCA. Falk's
softball
question
ignored what
Palau's
representative
said on the
record in
February.
Will CBS be
reporting on
this press
conference,
or was the
question
essentially
wasted such
that layoffs
could not be
asked about?
Then
the UNDP
spokesperson
gave Falk's
sidekick the
second -- and
LAST, he
said --
question,
which was
wasted on a
mere follow up
to Falk's.
Inner City
Press objected
to the mere
two question
press
conference; it
and the Free
UN Coalition
for Access
formally
oppose the
setting aside
of the first
(and here,
second and
last)
question for
UNCA a/k/a
the UN's
Censorship
Alliance.
Under
Falk, even
more than
under her
rarely present
predecessor,
UNCA has
taken to
branding and
claiming the
first question
press
conferences
and even
stakeouts,
even if Falk
does NO
reporting on
the topic.
On
June 24, Falk
lamely asked
exactly the
same question
that had
already
been asked,
not only about
illicit
financial
flows but even
the
important
topic of the
journalists in
jail in Egypt.
Al Jazeera had
already asked,
but Falk asked
exactly the
same question
(when there
were many real
questions to
ask about the
jailing and
the wan
response by
the UN, whose
credibility
on press
freedom is in
question
-- for
example, in
Sri Lanka.)
Falk
then tweeted
that
#JournalismIsNotACrime
-- strange,
from a person
who shouted in
a meeting
she'd already
said she knew
would be
reported, on the
record,
that covering
her and UNCA
made a one not
a
reporter but a
“mugger”
-- audio
here, here and
here.
Again,
that
is the logic
used by Egypt,
that if you
don't like
coverage, the
reporter is
not a journalist
but a
criminal, or
mugger. This
is the
UN's
Censorship
Alliance.
Footnote:
After
UNCA's Falk
and Evelyn
Leopold wasted
the two and
only
questions at
UNDP,
mid-layoffs,
they had UN
(and former
UNDP)
Spokesman
Stephane
Dujarric's
office squawk
over the
loudspeaker
system that
UNCA would be
showing the
World Cup in
the large room
the
UN gives it,
usually to sit
empty, while
the UN
evicted the
News
Agency of
Nigeria for
lack of space.
Here
is background
on UNCA's
television
games
under Falk.
Watch this
site.
* * *
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