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At UN, "Ban-Handling" of Press Triggers Apology But Not Yet Any Explanation

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, May 6 -- After a week of talk at the UN about press freedom, the Organization's commitment to the issue was put to the test, in a small but significant way, this week. On the evening of May 5, after Secretary-General BAN Ki-moon gave a short speech to an audience of a few dozen in the fourth floor penthouse of the Dag Hammarskjold library -- click here for Inner City Press' coverage of the speech -- a journalist spoke with him on his way to the elevator, and followed into the elevator.

    During the short ride down, the journalist asked a question about the UN's views about Iraq. Mr. Ban began to answer, but when his staffer Ms. CHOI Soung-ah reportedly said "No questions" and grabbed the journalist's arm, as a restraint. As later recounted, what struck the journalist most was that this took place in the presence of the Secretary-General.

Mr. Ban speaking on the evening of May 5, elevator and incident not shown

            On May 6 at the UN's regular noon briefing, the following brief Q&A occurred:

Question:  does the Secretary-General condone the right of journalists to ask questions without interference?

Deputy Spokesperson Okabe:  I didn't quite understand...

Question:  Following the UNRWA event, I had approached him to ask a question and one of his UN staff held my arm back.  Is that something that he condones?

Deputy Spokesperson Okabe:  I'm not aware of that incident, so we'll need to talk about that afterwards. 

            The promised "talk afterwards" focused not on the "ban-handling" of the journalist, but on why the journalist had raised this question during the noon briefing, rather than in private. Meanwhile a number of other UN correspondents remarked that for the common good the issue should be pursued and reported.

   While later a one-line apology was issued by the Spokesperson's Office, the question asked, whether BAN himself supports that rights of journalists to ask questions without inference, in this case physical interference, remains unanswered. Nor has Monday's stakeout question to Mr. Ban, whether he supports a Freedom of Information Act at the UN, nor the other related questions put to the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services, been answered. Watch this site.

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Click here for a Reuters AlertNet piece by this correspondent about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click here for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali National Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an undefined trust fund.  Video Analysis here

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