At
UN, Call to
Cancel Syria
Photos, on Day
of Charlie
Hebdo Attack
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
January 7 --
On a day when
officials
around the
world and at
the UN after
the attack on
Charlie Hebdo
in Paris spoke
about the
right to
freedom of
expression and
to display
unpopular
views, the UN
received a
protest to a
photo exhibit
about Syria
set to begin
the next day,
January 8.
The
Syrian
National
Coalition --
the moderate
opposition, in
Washingtonese
-- wrote to UN
Management
official Yukio
Takasu:
"It
has come to my
attention that
on 8 – 16
January 2015
the United
Nations
Secretariat
Building will
host an
exhibit for
the Syrian
Arab Republic
Mission
featuring the
photographs of
Syrian regime
propagandist
Hagop
Vanesian, in
an event
entitled 'My
Homeland.' The
UN cannot in
good
conscience
host an
exhibit that
callously
promotes a
regime that is
responsible
for immense
death and
unprecedented
destruction.
By doing so,
the UN
condones the
atrocities
committed by
Syrian forces,
and serves as
a mouthpiece
for Assad’s
heinous war
crimes."
As set forth
below, UN
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon in a
contradictory
way, in a
private event
in the
clubhouse of a
group that has
itself engaged
in censorship,
spoke on
January 7
about the need
for freedom of
expression.
(Whether he's
raised this in
his native
South Korea,
where a
newspaper
editor faces
criminal
charges for
insulting the
president, is
not known; the
issue was not
included in
Ban's long
read-out of
his New Years
call to South
Korean
president
Park.)
Perhaps Ban's
Secretariat
won't act on
the SNC
complaint,
which we're
linking to here, because it
came one day
before the
exhibition.
Will its
response be
about "freedom
of
expression"?
There are
certainly
distinctions
to be made
between
Charlie Hebdo,
the Syrian
government and
this
photographer,
and we're open
to hearing
all. But what
does freedom
of expression
mean?
, 
