New
UNSG Guterres Hold Town Hall,
Press Banned UNlike In Previous
Years By Gallach
By Matthew
Russell Lee
Update
- UN censorship
UNITED NATIONS,
January 9 -- When new UN
Secretary General Antonio
Guterres held his first Town
Hall meeting on January 9,
Inner City Press went in early
to stake it out - that is,
stand in front and speak to
attendees -- as it has in
previous years.
But
this year, due to a
retaliatory eviction by former
Secretary General Ban
Ki-moon's head of
communications Cristina
Gallach and Ban's holdover
spokesman Stephane Dujarric,
Inner City Press could not
pass through the turnstile on
the UN's second floor. And
there was no one in Gallach's
Media Accreditation and
Liaison Unit office. Inner
City Press and its coverage
were banned.
So here
was the notice the UN sent
out, provided to Inner City
Press by UN staff:
“Dear colleagues,
Secretary-General
António Guterres will hold a
first global townhall meeting
with UN staff on Monday, 9
January 2017 from 9 - 10:30 am
(NY time) in the ECOSOC
Chamber at United Nations
Headquarters in New York.
Many duty
stations away from New York
will participate via
video-teleconference. All
staff members of the UN
Secretariat, as well as
Agencies, Funds and
Programmes, are encouraged to
attend the townhall in person
if they are in New York.
UN Staff, do you
have a comment or a suggestion
you would like to share with
Secretary-General Guterres?
You may submit
comments or questions HERE
(anonymous submission is
possible)... A selection of
frequently asked questions
submitted by staff will be
presented during the Townhall
meeting.
Following the
townhall meeting, a summary of
the meeting will be posted on
iSeek - the UN Intranet,
including responses to
questions submitted online or
any issues which may not be
fully addressed during the
townhall meeting.
Warm regards,
The Department of Management “
We'll have more on this.
The United
Nations at the beginning of
2017 still has no
Freedom of Information Act,
no content neutral standards
for media accreditation and no
right to due process or
appeal for journalists.
This is UNacceptable.
New UN Secretary
General Antonio Guterres
should be expected to address
these issues, and to hold at
least monthly sit-down press
conferences. On January 6
holdover spokesman Stephane
Dujarric indicated he would
wait for something to
announce. But Q&A should
not be tied to a particular UN
announcement.
Downgrading to non-resident
correspondent status, and
eviction from UN work-space,
is not a legitimate way to
respond to coverage of UN
irregularities and corruption
such as that alleged in the
ongoing Ng Lap Seng / John
Ashe UN bribery case. It must
be reversed, but also
non-resident correspondents
should not be restricted
to minders or escorts to
cover events on the Conference
Building's second floor.
On January 6,
Dujarric and DPI's Cristina
Gallach led Guterres on a tour
that implied that only those
who pay money to a group which
last month gave an award to
anti-press Ban Ki-moon, and
who are granted (and not
evicted in retaliation from)
UN office space are part of
the UN press corps. Click
here for Inner City
Press' story,
and YouTube
video. This will
ill-serve Guterres, and the
UN.
New SG
Guterres is toured around by Gallach &
Dujarric, Jan 6, 2017, photo by M.R. Lee
Beyond
headquarters, the UN in the
field must become more
responsive to local
journalists. A Free
UN Coalition for Access
member in Hargeisa, Somaliland
complains that the UN in
Mogadishu refuses to answer
simple journalistic questions.
The same has occurred in
Colombia, while the UN's
leadership in Kenya has
informed staff not to speak to
particular media. This is
UNacceptable.
That
former Secretary General Ban
Ki-moon, among his very first
acts upon leaving the UN, took
legal action against reports
of possible corruption during
his tenure reflects badly on
the UN.
FUNCA hopes for a
better 2017, but hope is not
enough. The UN needs a FOIA, a
reversal of recent anti-press
decisions and due process and
content neutral standards, and
at least monthly Secretary
General press conferences,
going forward. We will have
more on this; watch this site.
***
Feedback:
Editorial [at] innercitypress.com
Past and future UN Office: S-303,
UN, NY 10017 USA
For now,
mail to: 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
2006-2017 Inner City Press, Inc. To request reprint or other
permission, contact Editorial [at] innercitypress [dot] com
|
,
