As
Nicaragua Threatens Media For Not Signing
Statement UNSG Guterres Silent, Press
Banned
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon Video Song
BBC
- Guardian
UK - Honduras
- CJR -
PFT
UN GATE, June 2 –
As Nicaragua threatens
criminal investigations and
other sanctions against
journalists, including on the
vague charge of not signing an
inaccurate statement, in the
United Nations on June 2 no
one asked SG Antonio Guterres
or his spokesman Stephane
Dujarric about it, and the two
said nothing.
Inner City
Press, banned
from the UN by Guterres for
1066 days and counting, got
none of its written questions
answered, despite Dujarric's on-camera
promise to do so.
In Nicaragua
since late
May,
authorities
have summoned
at least 16
journalists to
give witness
testimony
relating to a
money
laundering
investigation
into Cristiana
Chamorro, a
prospective
candidate in
the country’s
November 7
presidential
elections. María
Lilly Delgado,
a freelance
correspondent
for the
U.S.-based
television
network
Univision, was
questioned.
On
May 28, the
Nicaraguan
prosecutor’s
office issued
a statement
saying Delgado
refused to
sign a
statement and
answer
questions, but
did not state
whether she
was under
formal
investigation.
Delgado says,
“I never said
that I was not
willing to
answer
questions and
sign the
documents, but
their
statements had
various
inaccuracies.
I requested
they revise
them and they
refused."
At
the UN in July
2018, after
Inner City
Press was
roughed up, a
statement was
taken in a
basement on
45th Street
UNITAR
building, with
no recording
or corrections
allowed. Inner
City Press has
not been
allowed in the
UN since.
Meanwhile, we can
report, in the US
State Department
briefing on June 2 the issues
of Nicaragua came up and
deputy spokesperson Jalina
Porter said the Administration
supports freedom of press:
"the United States supports
the freedom of the press and
will continue to champion that
not only in Nicaragua but all
over the world."
If so,
what about the UN's 1066 day
ban on Inner City Press?
Likewise, on Belarus, after
dissident blogger Pratasevich
was grabbed off a Ryan Air
flight forced to land in
Minsk, many including the US
spoke.
But for more than
a full day, nothing from
Antonio Guterres, the UN
Secretary General who rarely
takes questions and even had
the Press which asked him
about the mass killings in
Cameroon thrown out of the UN.
Alert here;
new Belarus Blues song here.
Now on May 30,
The chief editor of a popular
Belarusian news site has been
detained on Sunday and his
home searched. Aliaksei Shota,
editor of Hrodna.life, was
detained with police officers
claiming he was being
investigated on suspicion of
extremism. His site focuses on
Grodno, Belarus’s
fifth-largest city.
Authorities said Shota “posted
information products that were
duly recognized as extremist.”
Officers
confiscated computer hard
drives from his home.
Shota had worked with with
Belarus's most popular
internet portal Tut.by, before
it was shut down by the
government this month after 15
employees were arrested. From
Guterres? Silence - he wants
all P5 support for a second
term.
On May 28,
Guterres' UN Press Briefing
Room hosted a press
conference, from which Inner
City Press was banned, in
which the grabbing of
Pratasevich was called fake
news, in response to questions
from state media.
Inner City
Press has asked incoming UNSC
president for June Estonia
for access - and it and the
Free UN Coalition for Access
(FUNCA) will report on all
results.
***
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