UNITED
NATIONS, June
24 -- While
the UN holds a
good
governance
conference
in Bahrain,
which outlaws
“unregistered
organizations,”
inside UN
Headquarters
the Department
of Public
Information on
Monday
threatened the
suspension or
withdrawal of
press
accreditation
for
displaying the
sign of the Free UN Coalition for Access.
FUNCA
was formed in
December 2012
as an
alternative to
the UN
Correspondents
Association, five
of whose Executive
Committee
members
earlier that
year asked
UN Department
of Public
Information
official
Stephane
Dujarric to
throw
Inner City
Press out of
the UN. Today
a new document
goes online,
here.
That
campaign
stopped, or
was suspended,
after Inner
City Press
obtained
copies of the
requests from
Voice of
America under
the US Freedom
of
Information
Act and
published some
of them.
But
in mid-2013, DPI and
UNCA together
agreed on new
Media Access
Guidelines
which they now
say outlaw
even a single
sign of FUNCA
on
the door
of Inner City
Press' office.
Like Bahrain,
Ban Ki-moon's
UN
essentially
outlaws or
bans
organizations
that it does
not like, or
which dissent.
Troublingly,
among
documents
Inner City
Press obtained
are a number
which UNCA
Executive
Committee
members sent
to Dujarric
not through
his official
UN email
account, but
through a
private
account, steph [at]
dujarric.com.
Dujarric
replied
to a number of
these requests
and encouraged
more, saying
for
example “I
will keep this
email to
myself.”
As
Inner City
Press
and FUNCA have
now repeatedly
raised to DPI
chief Peter
Launsky-Tieffenthal,
this is akin
to the film
“Bad
Lieutenant,”
or a situation
in which a
captain in a
police
precinct sets
up his
own chain of
communications
outside of the
precinct and
acts on it.
The precinct
commander has
to do
something, no?
Or Internal
Affairs
(in this case,
the Office of
Internal
Oversight
Services)
should get
involved, no?
Here
now
today put
online is
just one of
the documents,
in which
Reuters bureau
chief Louis
Charbonneau
sent an UNCA
Executive
Committee
letter which
Inner City
Press was
repeatedly
told would not
be distributed
to Dujarric at
steph [at]
dujarric.com,
with the
notation “You
didn't get
this from
me.”
To
explain
the context of
the document:
Inner City
Press
published an
article noting
accurately
that UNCA's
then president
had a past
financial
relationship
with Palitha
Kohona, who as
Sri Lanka's
Ambassador to
the UN then got
UNCA to screen
a government
film
denying war
crimes.
UNCA tried to
get Inner City
Press to take
the
article down,
then
instituted and
leaked a
proceeding
that led to
Inner City
Press
receiving
death threats.
Inner
City Press
asked that it
stop, then
asked the
prosecutors'
bosses to make
it stop. The
internal
letter
resulted, and
UNCA's -- and
Reuters' --
Charbonneau
immediately
sent it to
steph [at]
dujarric.com
saying “you
didn't get this
from me.”
Document now
online here.
Now
what? Citing
the rules
it agreed to
with UNCA,
DPI has today
June
24
threatened to
suspend or
withdraw Inner
City Press'
accreditation
--
for hanging a
sign of a
press freedom
group it
co-founded
after
seeing UNCA
and DPI for
what they are:
the UN's
Censorship
Alliance.
FUNCA has
asked
questions of
DPI which have
yet to be
answered.
Will
they succeed?
Watch this
site.
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