In Other Media-eg New Statesman, AJE, FP, Georgia, NYT,  Azerbaijan, CSM Click here to contact us     .

By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon  Video
BBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - CJR - PFT

UN GATE, August 27 – The increasing corruption of the United Nations under Secretary General Antonio Guterres, and of the UN Correspondents Association he works with to intimidate and then rough up and ban the investigative Press, has been made clear today in a statement by former Ambassador of Sri Lanka Palitha Kohona, who has been accused of war crimes in the White Flags Killings, see below.

 Now in August 2021, journalist Keerthi Ratnayake, a contributor to Lanka-e-News, was summoned to the Kollupitiya Police Station in Colombo in western Sri Lanka on August 14 to answer questions about information he had provided to the Indian embassy in Colombo concerning a possible terrorist attack on the embassy. He was ordered to be held for 90 days at the station under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, while his home was searched and computers and phones confiscated, according to the reports.  He has not been charged with a crime."

From the UN? Nothing - as Antonio Guterres and Melissa Fleming ban press, refuse to even answer polite law firm letter, Q&A here.

In July, officers with the Batticaloa district’s Terrorism Investigation Division, a branch of the Sri Lankan police, interrogated   Selvakumar Nilanthan, a freelance Tamil journalist and the secretary of the Batticaloa District Tamil Journalists Association, a local press freedom group, for about three hours, according to the Tamil Guardian, a copy of authorities’ July 10 summons to the journalist, and a tweet by Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka, a local human rights group.  Officers questioned Nilanthan about his income sources, and demanded the login details of his Facebook, WhatsApp, email, and bank accounts, according to the Tamil Guardian. They also asked him if he supported the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a banned group that the government considers a terrorist organization, according to that report and the human rights group.  Authorities told Nilanthan that he may be summoned for another interrogation, the Tamil Guardian reported.

  Back on Feb 2, this call: "The United Nations Peacekeeping department should suspend all deployments from Sri Lanka following the latest report of the UN human rights body which warns that the independence and credibility of the body tasked with vetting the troops had been fundamentally eroded1 . “The UN Department of Peace Operations has a legal duty to ensure due diligence before deploying troops,” said the Executive Director of the International Truth and Justice Project, Yasmin Sooka. “The report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights confirms that New York is not in a position now to certify that the Sri Lankan troops have been properly vetted and screened and must urgently take steps to move the screening process back to Geneva.” Under the current arrangement the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka carries out the vetting of troops in Colombo. The appointment of Shavendra Silva to Army Commander in 2019 triggered the UN’s announcement that it was suspending deployment of all Sri Lankan peacekeepers, except where operations could be endangered... The UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations said it would suspend future Sri Lankan army deployments, “except where suspension would expose UN operations to serious operational risk”. a quarter of Sri Lankan peacekeepers - namely those deployed in Lebanon who would be replaced by troops from other countries . In addition, departing Sri Lankan contingents were photographed repeatedly saluting an alleged war criminal, Shavendra Silva, at farewell parades . This is in spite of the widespread international criticism of the appointment of Shavendra Silva to Army Commander in 2019. Later in February 2020, the US Government made public its designation of Shavendra Silva and his family for alleged gross violations of human rights10. Shavendra Silva was subsequently given the additional responsibility of acting Chief of Defence Staff – the top most military position - and was recently promoted to the rank of four star General." The UN has failed on this, and Guterres keeps censoring.

What will CPJ,  RSF et al do? Watch this site.

***

Your support means a lot. As little as $5 a month helps keep us going and grants you access to exclusive bonus material on our Patreon page. Click here to become a patron.

Feedback: Editorial [at] innercitypress.com
SDNY Press Room 480, front cubicle
500 Pearl Street, NY NY 10007 USA

Past & future at UN: Room S-303, UN, NY 10017 USA

Mail: Box 20047, Dag Hammarskjold Station NY NY 10017

Reporter's mobile (and weekends): 718-716-3540

Other, earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.

 Copyright 2006-2020 Inner City Press, Inc. To request reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at] innercitypress.com