At
UN Alison Smale Ended Career
of Cover Ups With Censorship
For Guterres Lawless Legacy
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Video
CJR Letter
UN GATE,
September 1 – One
year and five
days
after banning
Inner City
Press for life
without appeal
from the UN,
on August 22
now gone
UN Global
Communicator
Alison Smale held an
ill-attended
a press
conference
about her last
hurrah in Salt
Lake City. In
the press
conference,
the second of
only three
questions was
from one of
the correspondents
she gives
office space
to and who
said that
France's Macron
"made love" to
US President
Donald J.
Trump. Smale
said nothing.
Video here.
The UN has
refused to
answer questions
from Inner
City Press
which Smale
banned about
when her
final day was.
Her
replacement
Melissa
Fleming,
corrupted,
refused to
answer
question and
on August 30
is responsible
for denying
Inner City
Press access
to UNGA week
which they
grant to
hundreds of
dictator
promoting
state media.
And now, back
in the news
before she
disappears
after a career
culminating in
censorship,
this:
"“American
Media Dodging
U.N.
Surveillance
Story.”
Why hadn’t the
paper of
record covered
it, Solomon
asked Alison
Smale, then a
deputy foreign
editor at the
New York
Times. “It’s
not that we
haven’t been
interested,”
Smale told
him. The
problem was
that “we could
get no
confirmation
or comment”
about the NSA
email from
U.S.
officials. But
“we are still
definitely
looking into
it,” said
Smale. “It’s
not that we’re
not.”
The Times
never
mentioned Gun
until January
2004, 10
months later."
So Smale
was a cover
up article
even then. Or
she was a
"serious journalist"
who thought nothing
could or
should be
written without
getting
confirmation
or denial from
an
institution.
Then while at
the UN she
banned the banned
Inner
City Press and
lied that its
written
questions
would be
written. We
will continue
to cover her -
her Twitter
profile as
of September 1
still says
"moved to New
York for
exciting UN
job .. still
with Russian
pianist-composer
Sergei Dreznin
daughter Lucy
in UK
...retweets
not
endorsements..."
Yeah,
and reputation
entirely false
or destroyed.
Part of
her "legacy" - past
4 pm on
Friday, August
30 the UN
issued a
denial of
accreditation
with no
reasoning
other than
that
accreditation
had previously
been revoked:
"From:
malu
<malu@un.org>
Date: Fri, Aug
30, 2019 at
4:23 PM
Subject: U.N.
eAccreditation
request for
Matthew Lee
Ref # M5413398
has been
declined
To: Inner City
Press:
Greetings
Matthew Lee
from Inner
City
Press,
Your media
accreditation
request, with
reference no:
M5413398, has
been declined
for the
following
reason: Media
accreditation
was withdrawn
on 17 August
2018."
This is
Kafka-esque,
and corrupt.
We will have
more, much
more, on this.
Smale
disgraced her
former role
with for
example the
New York
Times. She
never once
even spoke to
Inner City
Press before
banning it;
she used its
questioning of
diplomats at
the Delegates
Entrance as a
basis for her Kakfa-esque
order.
Her pianist
husband
memorably told
Inner City
Press that to
avoid this
fate it should
wear a suit
and tie.
Because of course
that is the
litmus test
for
journalism. She
didn't
disclose her
outside
activities,
she delayed in
filing the
minimal public
financial disclosure.
She made
claims about
Inner City
Press that
were entirely
false
while allowing
no opportunity
for rebuttal.
She was and is
a censor.
Here for her
Salt Lake City
scam is the her
schedule: The
68th United
Nations Civil
Society
Conference
will be held
under the
theme
‘Building
Inclusive and
Sustainable
Cities and
Communities’
in Salt Lake
City, Utah,
USA from 26 to
28 August
2019.
Organized in
cooperation
with the
NGO/DPI
Executive
Committee,
Salt Lake
City’s Mayor’s
office and
chaired by
civil society
representative
Maruxa
Cardama,
Secretary
General at
SLoCaT
Partnership on
Sustainable,
Low Carbon
Transport,
this will be
the first time
a major UN
conference
will be held
in the United
States of
America,
outside of New
York...
What: 68th
United Nations
Civil Society
Conference
When: 26 to 28
August
2019
Where: Salt
Palace
Convention
Center, Salt
Lake City,
Utah,
USA
Media
Highlights
Monday, 26
August 2019
10:00 – 11:30
Opening
Plenary 11:30
– 11:45 Press
Briefing
Tuesday, 27
August 2019
TBD Wednesday,
28 August 2019
15:00 – 16:30
Closing
Plenary
(Adoption of
Conference
Outcome &
Youth
Declaration)
16:30 – 16:45
Press
Briefing."
We'll
have more on
this - and
on Smale's
replacement, who
is on the
clock to end the
censorship
prior to and
for the upcoming
UN General
Assembly high
level week,
to be apply
for on August 24
before
September 5, a
UNGA high
level week
Inner City Press
covered in
depth from in
the UN like
1000s of
others until
the arrival of
the secretive censor
Antonio Guterres.
But who
owns the
United Nations
- Guterres? Is it a
dictatorship
with no due
process of
appeals
rights? Watch
this site.
Back on 23
August 2018
Smale held
a faux press
conference from which
the Press was
banned
to announce
the UN will spend the
public's money
in Salt
Lake City.
Minutes before
she began,
there were
three
journalists in
the UN Press
Briefing Room,
if you include
the personal
friend of
Smale's she
channeled
unedited into
her banning
letter. The
room suddenly
filled up with
non
journalists -
a supposed no
no, but
Smale's Media
Accreditation
and Liaison
Unit did not
enforce that
rule (or, one
hopes, lure any
unsuspecting
correspondent into
"behavior"
that Smale
could uses as
a pretext for
punishment. Having
to cover this
from
the UN bus
stop made it
hard to hear,
but Smale was
seen stepping off
the
podium before
the end. The
other speakers
seemed fine and we
hope to have
more on and
from them -
Smale makes it
difficult, with her
outright
censorship. It
was moderated
by
another of the
complainants Smale
channeled,
Maher Nasser,
who
blocked Inner
City Press on
Twitter after it asked
about the
placement of
sexual
exploitation
and abuse on a
Peacekeeping
website he
was promoting,
and about
rules. This
is today's
DPI, and UN. Utah,
Smale seems to
think,
should
make
her censorship
acceptable,
she appears to
think. There
no way to
know, because
despite
Smale's
assurance in her no
due process
banning
letter, of the
ten questions
Inner City
Press asked by
email on
August 23, not
a single
one was
answered,
including the reiterated
question,
"This is again
a request to
be informed of
the reason on
the SG's
Public
Financial
Disclosure
page USG Smale
is not listed,
while Natalia
Gherman who
was named to
her position
later than USG
Smale is
listed and has
made public
disclosure -
and for an
explanation
why Smale did
not recuse
herself as was
clearly called
for from
banning me. (There
was also August
23-10: In
terms of USG
Smale's letter
banning me for
life please
state who she
says was
disparaged,
when, and in
what medium /
in person or
not. Please
provide the
UN's version,
and any UN
video, of the
June 19
private use of
briefing room
for Al Jazeera
and critique
afterward.
Please
immediately
provide all UN
video of the
June 22 ouster
and July 3
roughing up
and ouster,
and the names
and
nationalities
of all
involved
officers.")
If Smale
doesn't make
the minimal public
financial
disclosure,
and it is not
explained despite
being asked
repeatedly after
she was
accused by
whistleblowers
in her own
Department
of diverting
funds allocated
for Swahili
services to English language social
media
promotion of
Antonio
Guterres, what
about
this spending
in Salt
Lake? Below
is from
the UN's press
release,
embargoed
until 6 pm
when we
publish it,
fifteen minutes
before the
press
conference
regarding
which we asked
Smale's Department:
"request, as a
journalist who
has covered
the UN for 12
years and is
still covering
it today, to
be allowed to
attend and ask
questions at
the 6:15 press
conference by
USG Smale who
never spoke to
me once before
purporting to
ban me for
life." While
not directly
answered, the
effect was of
course no:
more Smale
censorship, a
Press-less
press
conference.
At
4 pm on Friday
August 17, 2018 Inner
City Press got
a four page letter
from Under
Secretary
General Alison
Smale,
formerly the
New York
Times' Berlin
bureau chief. We've put
the letter on
Scribd here,
Patreon
download here.
The
letter
informed me,
without a
single
opportunity to
be heard and
offer
rebuttal, that
“your
accreditation
is hereby
withdrawn
pursuant to
the
Guidelines.”
It cited what it
called three
previous
warnings. But
on further
inspection there is
no there,
there. And
Grand
Inquisitor Alison
Smale didn't
even
consider, or
acknowledge,
that Inner
City Press had
responded to
the
spurious
complaints...
As
part of its
coverage in
the UN Inner
City Press heard
from
whistleblowers
in Smale's
then
Department of
Public
Information
that she
diverted funds
intended for Swahili
programming to
her avowed
focused,
getting better
coverage for
Guterres
particularly
on social
media.
But
Smale did not
recuse
herself, and
Guterres who
refused my
polite question
to him on July
20 why this
censorship was
taking place
and why he had
been so silent
as Cameroon
killed
Anglophones in
the North-West
and South-West
regions of the
country, did
not make her
recuse. Nor
did he recuse
himself,
despite my
timely request
that the
President of
the General
Assembly, and
not the
obviously
conflicted
Guterres and
Smale, take
charge of any
review deemed
necessary.
What
is most
troubling
about the UN's
August 17
dis-accreditation
letter is how
vague it is,
and inaccurate
the few times
it gets
specific.
The UN
claims that on
3 July 2018 I
“attempted to
gain
unauthorized
access to a
locked area of
the UN.” But
as I reported
at the the
time, and my
Periscope video subsequently used by Fox
News and
The UK
Independent
shows, I was
in the UN's
much traveled
Vienna Cafe.
(Guterres'
Assistant
Secretary General
Christian Saunders,
whose involvement in a
UN procurement
scandal I
previously reported,
was also
there: he
oversaw the
assault and
the next day
told me he
doesn't like
my articles.)
On July 3,
2018 I was
staking out --
that is,
standing
outside of -
the UN Budget
Committee
meetings. In
fact, I had
been informed
of the
meetings by UN
personnel and
diplomats had
invited me
down in order
to tell me, as
a reported,
what was going
on.
Ironically
it
was with
Cameroon's
Ambassador
Tommo Monthe
that I had
just spoken
when UN
Lieutenant
Ronald E.
Dobbins and
another
officer who
had still been
identified by
the UN
approached me
from behind,
grabbed and
twisted my
arm, grabbed
and damaged my
laptop
computer and
tore my shirt.
I recoiled and
said, loudly,
“I am a
journalist,
covering a
meeting!” To
Smale, this is
incivility,
enough to be
permanently
banned from
the UN for.
Next,
at the top of
page 3 of the
letter, Smale
runs through a
litany of
supposed
violations
without
providing any
details, nor
acknowledging
that other
correspondents
more friendly
to Guterres
and her are
allowed to do
these things
routinely.
Smale
pillories my
“presence on
UN premises
outside
authorized
time periods
as stipulated
in the
Guidelines.”
But
those
Guidelines,
even as
selectively
quoted by
Smale at the
top of page 2
of her letter,
make clear
that I was
permitted past
7 pm to cover
an advised
meeting - such
as the July 3
UN Budget
Committee
meeting
considering a
$6.7 billion
expenditure of
public funds
or the June 22
event in the
UN General
Assembly lobby
featuring a
speech in
which Guterres
bragged about
fasting in
Mali.
On
June 22, not
mentioned in
Smale's August
17 letter but
alleged as a
“repeat
violation” by
Guterres'
deputy
spokesman
Farhan Haq in
a July 5
article, the
same
Lieutenant
Dobbins and
four Emergency
Response Unit
officers he
summoned and
then told not
to give their
names, pushed
me out of the
UN even as
other non
resident
correspondents
were allowed
to remain in.
There is video, here.
Days
before that
first roughing
up of Inner
City Press by
UN Security
but clearly
green-lighted
from higher
up, Guterres'
lead spokesman
Stephane
Dujarric told
a person who
tried to speak
with him on my
behalf to get
the UN to stop
requiring me
to have a
minder or
escort as they
have since
February 2016
that things
would be
getting worse
for me. It seems
clear
Dujarric knew
about or had
already
ordered the
physical
targeting of
Inner City
Press any time
after 7 pm,
even if an
advised
meeting or
Guterres
speech was
taking place.
But a
telling
omission in
Smale's letter
is that as
recently as
June 26 dozens
of non
resident
correspondents
were allowed
to stay in the
UN past 7 pm
drinking with
Guterres on
the North
Lawn,
ghoulishly in
the name of
press freedom
with Smale.
The event was
not advised in
the UN Media
Alert, and I
know that UN
Security could
not have been
given a list
of approved
non resident
correspondents
since my
timely RSVP to
cover the
event which
had yet
another canned
Guterres
speech was
never
answered. I
was told by
the organizer
of that
pro-Guterres
event that the
RSVP was
ignored
because it was
open to all
correspondents.
Again, there
is video in my
contemporaneous coverage. Maybe this
is why Smale
and Guterres
- and Dujarric -
say livestreaming
is a problem
to be solved
with Security
violence and
banning.
Since
as
Smale says
there are
thousands of
those, many of
whom write few
articles and
ask fewer
questions,
there is no
way UN
Security had a
list of non
resident
correspondent
to NOT beat up
after 7 pm.
They just
decided / were
told to start
roughing up
critical Inner
City Press,
sometime
between June
22 until the
July 3 assault
which I
reported on
July 4 to the
NYPD and was
told, while a
report was
taken, that
the UN asserts
immunity.
(That's the
problem.)
Guterres'
Spokesman
Stephane
Dujarric
repeatedly
used
profanity,
specifically
the F-word, in
the briefing
room including
telling me,
“Matthew
that's a
stupid f*cking
question.”
Even more
dispositively
a former
president of
the UN
Correspondents
Association,
Giampaoli
Pioli who had
ordered me to
remove from
the Internet
an article
about him
arranging a UN
screening for
the Sri Lanka
Ambassador of
a film denying
his country's
war crimes
after having
had the
Ambassador as
his paying
tenant in one
of his many
Manhattan
apartment -
the reason I
quit UNCA -
once called me
an “assh*le”
at the UN
Security
Council
stakeout,
during an
advised
meeting.
It
happened at
the Security
Council
stakeout so it
was recorded, audio here.
But DPI did
nothing about
this profanity
and
“derogatory
assertion” by
the president
of UNCA,
become their
UN Censorship
Alliance. So
there is no
rule, less
enough of one
to ban me for
life.
There
is another
vague
reference to
refusing to
obey UN
Security
officers,
impossible to
respond to and
troubling in
light of the
video of Lt
Dobbins and
his colleague
pulling me,
and tearing my
shirt. Is one
not allowed to
say, “I am a
journalist?”
What would
Smale do?
Guterres
did not act on
Inner City
Press' 25 June
2018
letter to
alleging nepotism
in the handing
of the
management of
the Security
Council's
website to the
photographer
husband of the
chief of staff
of the
Department of
Political
Affairs, nor
on Inner City
Press now
ironic request
that he
provide
protect to the
Press being
target. It was
Guterres, it
turns out, who
was and is
behind the
targeting.
Most
Orwellian,
halfway
through page 3
Smale attempts
to use
questions I
have had to
ask at the UN
Delegates
Entrance since
she and
Guterres
banned me from
the UN
Security
Council
stakeout from
July 3 on. At
that new
stakeout, I
have
interviewed
among others
outgoing Human
Rights
Commissioner
Prince Zeid
(whose abuse
of
whistleblowers
I have also
reported) and
Permanent
Representatives
such as those
from
Kazakhstan and
even Burundi.
So which
unnamed member
states is
Smale claiming
have
complained to
her and
Guterres:
Cameroon? The
United
Kingdom?
France?
Morocco?
In
fact, one of
the three
specific (now
in retrospect
devious)
warning letter
Smale cites
involved the
Moroccan
delegation
falsely
claiming I
could not take
photographs or
record and
live-stream at
the UN
Security
Council
stakeout. But
the Guidelines
permit that.
The
DPI staff who
passed along
the Morocco
complaint were
orally
apologetic but
that's now for
naught. The
Kafkaesque
file was being
built.
Smale
claimed in a
July 19, 2018
response to
the DC-based
whistleblower
protection
group
Government
Accountability
Project that
Dujarric and
the four other
spokespeople
his office
would be
answering my
e-mailed
question in
respect to
what she
called my
“journalistic
endeavour.”
This was repeated
today to BuzzFeed's
Hayes Brown,
here.
But they
answer less
than 20% of
the questions
- one a day,
the easiest of
the five I ask
- and I am
being banned
from covering
the UN
Security
Council, whose
mishandling of
Yemen
and Myanmar,
and
non-handling
or worse of Cameroon
I have a right
to cover and
Inner City
Press'
audience have
a right to
follow online
including in
live-streams.
Most
pressingly,
Guterres and
Smale want to
block me from
covering
member states
in the UN
General
Assembly high
level week in
late
September, the
deadline for
accreditation
for which is
September. A
conflicted
Secretariat
has no right
to ban a
well-read
media from
covering this
diplomatic
dance of
nations.
***
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