UN
Guterres To Serve Remarks to
UNCA Which Says Event Open to
All Correspondents, Request to
Cover
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS,
June 21 – How untransparent
and inaccessible is Antonio
Guterres, as UN Secretary
General? The last time he held
a press conference at UN
headquarters was more than
five months ago, on January
16. On that day, Inner
City Press asked
Guterres why he had not acted
on the killings by the
Cameroon government and had
not even started an audit of
the China Energy Fund
Committee UN bribery case in
which CEFC's UN representative
Patrick Ho was and is jailed.
Since then, still no audit and
no action on Cameroon.
Now
after five months Guterres
will on June 26 finally hold a
second press conference. But
on the same day, he is also
the guest of honor of the UN
Correspondents Association:
“This year marks UNCA's 70th
anniversary, celebrating seven
decades of journalism
committed to reporting on the
UN and its many causes and
objectives [1!]" The Free UN
Coalition for Access questions
the propriety of this focus on
the UN's "causes" rather than
simply covering the UN as it
is. But FUNCA has timely sent
this: "This is a timely
response to your statement
that 'The event is open to all
UN correspondents, Please RSVP
by FRIDAY, June 22nd to
RSVPUNCAEvents@gmail.com...
Opening Remarks byUN
Secretary-General António
Guterres, 6:00 pm (LOCATION
TBC).' A UN correspondent, by
choice not a member of UNCA,
is hereby timely requesting to
be informed where SG Antonio
Guterres will be making
remarks, and to cover it.
Please confirm receipt and
provide response. On deadline,
thank you in advance." Now
what? Guterres' holdover
spokesman Stephane Dujarric
has continued to restrict the
Press that asks him the most
questions, in favor of a
no-show Egyptian state media
whose correspondent Sanaa
Youssef is a former president
of UNCA and who hasn't asked
the UN a question in more than
a decade. Now Dujarric has
teamed up with three UNCA
members to try to claim that
covering his privatization of
the UN Press Briefing Room is
somehow inappropriately
aggressive. This is
censorship. We'll have more on
this.
***
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