Amid
100s of Death
Sentences in
Egypt, AI 2013
Report Spun in
Silent UN
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, March
26 -- Egypt
sentencing 529
people to
death this
week
put the death
penalty was
put even more
in the
spotlight. But
Amnesty
International's
report "Annual
death penalty
statistics
report 2014:
Death
Sentences and
Execution
2013" just
publicly
released makes
scant
reference to
Egypt, setting
out this list:
REPORTED
EXECUTIONS
IN 2013
Afghanistan
(2),
Bangladesh
(2), Botswana
(1), China
(+), India
(1), Indonesia
(5), Iran
(369+), Iraq
(169+), Japan
(8), Kuwait
(5), Malaysia
(2+),
Nigeria (4),
North Korea
(+),
Palestinian
Authority 5
(3+, by the
Hamas de facto
administration
in Gaza),
Saudi Arabia
(79+), Somalia
(34+; 15+ by
the Federal
Government,
and 19+ in
Puntland),
South
Sudan (4+),
Sudan (21+),
Taiwan (6),
USA (39), Viet
Nam (7+),
Yemen
(13+). Little
or no
information
was available
in some
countries - in
particular
Egypt...
The United
Nations, too,
does and says
very little
about Egypt,
beyond a
single
Security
Council
meeting.
Amnesty
International,
it emerged,
held an
embargoed
press
conference
"for UN-based
media" on
March 26
at 11 am,
while a
Security
Council
meeting was
taking place.
But
the briefing
wasn't
publicized
even to all UN
resident
correspondents
-- which
Amnesty could
easily have
itself done,
and held its
briefing in
the UN Press
Briefing Room.
Instead it was
held in the
clubhouse of
the United
Nations
Correspondents
Association,
which has
degenerated
into the UN's
Censorship
Alliance,
having documentably
sought to get
the
investigative
Press thrown
out of the UN.
One of the
UNCA complaints
"for the record"
to the UN has
since been
banned from
Google's Search
by a dubious
use for
censorship of
the US Digital
Millennium
Copyright Act,
here, critiqued
by the the
Electronic
Frontier
Foundation.
And Amnesty?
Amnesty and
its UN
representation
to their
credit
highlighted
for example
that one can
be sentenced
to death for
adultery in
Saudi Arabia,
and for car
jacking in
Nigeria and
Kenya (now
cracking down
in Somalis).
But
why
would Amnesty
partner with
censors? UNCA
allowed into
the UN, for
example, the
Sri Lankan
government's
response to
"Killing
Fields
of Sri Lanka,"
which was NOT
screened in
the UN but
rather by
Amnesty
International
at the Church
Center across
First Avenue.
Click
here
for more on
that.
In
Geneva earlier
on March 26, Amnesty
International
spoke about
accountability
for Sri
Lanka in the
UN Human
Rights Council.
What
about
accountability
in the UN?
Later
on March 26,
UNCA president
Pamela Falk
was spotted
behind the
UNCA
signs blocking
the windows of
the
rarely-open
clubhouse the
UN gives
to its
Censorship
Alliance.
While of a
press
conference
Amnesty held
in London, it
tweeted
a photograph
before the embargo
and presumably
recorded the
press
conference,
even after the
embargo
whatever was
said in the UN
Censorship
Alliance, for
example on
Egypt, was not
available.
Death penalty
or the death
of openness?
The means are
the end. The
end.
, 
