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By Matthew Russell Lee, CJR PFT NY Post

UNITED NATIONS GATE,  September 29 – For an event in the UN for a Financial Sector Commission on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking, Inner City Press was on September 24 singled out and banned, despite having its RSVP accepted by UN University.  Video here. Then on September 29, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres' deputy Amina J. Mohammed, who ignored and then OK-ed this censorship, went to Central Park to an event with Janet Jackson and others and blathered about freedom, here.  At the event, repeat preener Jim Kim of the World Bank purported to tell the audience to hold leaders accountable - except, by implication, UN system leaders like Guterres who mis-uses public funds to fly to Lisbon and bans the Press which asks. Here's the gushing of Amina J. Mohammed, for now implicated in censorship: "What’s up New York! Are you having fun? Tonight, we would like to shine a light on that boy that was born 100 years ago in Eastern Cape in South Africa. His long walk to freedom signified justice, it signified dignity, and it certainly signified what we are all looking for, peace in our world. It is that legacy that the United Nations sees in the 17 Global Goals that you’re all here standing for. And what we hope to see is that year on year to 2030 that we can take that journey, we can walk that 12 years to try to get to the 2030 goals. I believe that we can do that. Do you believe that we can? We can end Hunger. We can end sexual harassment and violence against women. We can certainly ensure that everyone is a digital citizen and that we connect the world. And so tonight, let us reinforce what we intend to do by achieving those 17 Goals in the next 12 years. What’s up New York? We can do it!" Could but won't - corrupt censors for now. Early on the rainy morning of September 25, Inner City Press sent this to unresponsive Antonio Guterres' Deputy Secretary General Amina J. Mohammed: "Dear DSG Mohammed:

This follows up on a telephone call I made to your office yesterday afternoon when I was blocked from attending an event in the Trusteeship Council Chamber about launching an Initiative for a Financial Sector Commission on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking.

I was invited to the event -- I investigate and report on the misdeeds of banks, and did so before I came to the UN to cover it in 2005  -- and my RSVP was accepted. I picked up my ticket at 2:45 pm on 46th Street, showed it to the officers on Second and First Avenues and stood in line at the Visitors Entrance with others going to the event.

They all were admitted but I was singled up and told to wait by the side. After a time a Department of Safety and Security official told me I am subject to a “current and active barred notice.”

Since all I have received from the UN, since being assaulted by DSS Lieutenant Dobbins and another on 3 July 2018 as I staked out the Fifth (Budget) Committee meetings having been invited there by several member states' diplomats in those final meetings, is an August 17 letter stating that my accreditation as a correspondent is withdrawn, I asked who is behind this target “current and active barred notice.”

The officer would not tell me. I asked if it is USG Drennan of DSS, whom I wrote to on 5 August 2018 (“REPORT OF PROHIBITED CONDUCT (HARASSMENT, ABUSE OF AUTHORITY) AND ‘FORMAL COMPLAINT’ SUBMITTED TO UN UNDER SECRETARY GENERAL FOR SAFETY AND SECURITY, MR PETER DRENNAN, PURSUANT TO ST/SGB/2008/5.” Receipt of that was confirmed to me on 8 August 2018 by Elena Rice-Howell, Special Assistant to the Under-Secretary-General of DSS.

But nothing has been done by DSS, including about my formal complaint of assault against Lt Dobbins and his colleagues who refused to give their names. This whole sordid descent into censorship by the current UN was profiled, along with SEA, Haiti cholera, conflicts of interest and travel cost waste, in the New York Post two days ago, here.

  I was told yesterday I should contact DPI - whose USG Alison Smale never spoke to me before withdrawing my accreditation and has not answer any of my ten e-mails nor a petition with more than 5000 signatures urging her to restore my access, my office S-303 and stop targeting me as I report, sometimes critically, on the UN.

So I called your office, just as the event I had RSVP-ed to began, and I am outraged by the lack of response. I was passed from one person to the next, the last of whom told me the head of office [presumably Nelson Muffuh] could not or would not do anything. It was even suggested to me, absurdly, that I contact DGACM. Nothing was answered. I missed the slavery - banks event and stand to miss other events. This is censorship and I am awaiting your office's response.

Thank you in advance for time on this.
Matthew Russell Lee, Esq., Inner City Press."

The event ran from 3:30 to 5 pm in the UN's Trusteeship Chamber. Inner City Prss arrived 45 minutes early to the NYPD security checkpoint at 46th Street and Second Avenue. Its ticket was accepted by NYPD, it prepared to audio record the event -- but at the UN Visitors Entrance a large UN Security Officer or Capitan nicknamed Tiny said No, it was his understanding that Inner City Press is entirely banned from the UN, not only as a journalist. "You have a current active barred notice against you," he said. Audio here.

Inner City Press asked him if this came from the boss of the Department Safety and Security Peter Drennan, who has not responded to Inner City Press formal complaint to him that it was assaulted by UN DSS Lieutenant Ronald E. Dobbins on July 3. He said it was not from chief Michael “Mick” Brown. Who then? He refused to say. “You have to call DPI,” he said, referring to the Department of Public Information whose chief Alison Smale has not answered a single on of Inner City Press' more than 10 e-mails.

    Inner City Press called the office of Secretary General Antonio Guterres' chief of staff Maria Luiz Viotti and informed them; they said that she would be told. Hours later, nothing. Inner City Press called the office of the Deputy Secretary General Amina J. Mohammed, and was told that the head of office, seemingly Nelson Muffuh, could or would do nothing. Then Inner City Press called the office of Alison Smale, where a person named Charlotte said she would look into and call back. Hours later, nothing. Audio of Inner City Press' side of calls, here.

   Inner City Press was never given a hearing by Smale before her August 17 letter with withdrew Inner City Press media accreditation. Nothing in it said anything about a ban from entering the UN as a person, a tourist, or in another other way. But this is what happened, without any recourse. Pure Kafka-esque censorship, by a former New York Times Berlin bureau chief to hinder coverage of the corruption of the former Portuguese prime minster Antonio Guterres, see September 23 New York Post here. What next? Watch this site.

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