| Human Rights Watch Removes
Press From HRC Presser Blocking Q On Gabon As
On Cameroon
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC
- Guardian
UK - Honduras
- CJR -
PFT
UN GATE / SDNY
COURT, Oct 8 – In the
increasing corrupt United
Nations of Secretary General
Antonio Guterres, on October
13 Gabon, China, Saudi Arabia,
Russia and others stand for
election to the UN Human
Rights Council.
Inner City
Press has shown how the UN and
Guterres have been purchased
by China. But few UN-insider
groups are saying anything
about family dicatorship (and
FrancAfrique staple, like
Cameroon) Gabon.
There was
an invitation online for an
October 8 press conference by
Louis Charbonneau, UN
director, Human Rights Watch
Sophie Richardson, China
director, Human Rights Watch
Sara Kayyali, Syria
researcher, Human Rights Watch
Adam Coogle, Middle East and
North Africa division deputy
director, Human Rights Watch
When: Thursday, October 8,
2020 from 10:30 a.m. – 11:30
a.m. EDT, complete with a Tiny URL to HRW's Zoom room,
here.
In order to
ask not only about China but
also Gabon, Inner City Press
clicked on the link at the
appointed time. It entered its
name and a response screen
said, the host will admit you.
But after a
time, the Zoom screen said,
The host has removed you from
the meeting. That would be
HRW. Video here.
A
travesty, like the UN Human
Rights Council. The
candidates: Saudi
Arabia and
China, Nepal,
Pakistan, and
Uzbekistan;
Ivory Coast,
Malawi, Gabon
and Senegal;
Russia and
Ukraine;
Mexico, Cuba,
and Bolivia
and HRW's two
friends,
Britain and
France.
HRW not
only downplayed the slaughter
of Anglophones in Cameroon
(telling Inner City Press is
was not a top 98 problem; its
Cameroon expert blocks Inner
City Press and many others) -
it also colludes with the UN
censorship alliance.
Consider some
history:
The former UN
Ambassador of Sri Lanka
Palitha Kohona, who has been
accused of war crimes in the
White Flags
Killings.
In an
article he published
earlier this year in Asia
Tribune, Kohona writes /
admits once Inner City Press
(he says, "the blogger")
"began undermining
Secretary-General Antonio
Guterres, we mounted a quiet
campaign against him within
the UN press corps itself...
information from our own
sources was made available to
many members of the UN press
corps with a view to impugning
the credibility of the man. It
took a while, but his bravado
unraveled when he fell afoul
of the President of the United
Nations Correspondents
Association (UNCA), Giampaolo
Pioli, who commenced
proceedings to take him to
court. Then he began to spar
with a number of respected
journalists who were beginning
to approach us... The UN
proceeded to evict him from
the room that he was occupying
and eventually from the UN
itself." See Guterres action,
continued by Melissa Fleming,
here.
Who is
Kohona referring to, as
helping him? Well, as a first
example - there are more -
here's an article Inner City
Press published at the time,
with people who are still at
the UN working with Guterres:
The letter,
signed by signed by Reuters' Louis
Charbonneau, Talal Al-Haj of
Al-Arabia, Margaret Besheer of Voice
of America and Timothy Witcher of
Agence France Presse, was to set up
a "Board of Examination" to
"investigate" Inner City Press with
an eye to expelling it.
But on June 3, a major
government aligned newspaper in
Sri Lanka, the Sunday Observer,
quoted with approval the UNCA
Executive Committee indictment of
Inner City Press.
The newspaper
concluded that that "if the
allegations against Lee are proven,
the UN headquarters will be made out
of bounds for him. If the harassment
charges are proven he could face a
jail term of up to six years."
It also reports, citing
"authoritative diplomatic sources,"
that
"The
United Nations Correspondents’
Association (UNCA) has initiated an
inquiry against Inner City Press
correspondent Matthew Russell Lee who
was operating from the UN Headquarters
on his unethical and unprofessional
behaviour, authoritative diplomatic
sources told the Sunday Observer
yesterday. The Executive Committee of
the UNCA met on May 29 to discuss his
conduct following many complaints
received by the Association and voted 13
to one in favour of setting up a
five-member board of examination.
Lee's
unethical coverage in the Inner City
Press dominated issues and sensitive
affairs concerning Sri Lanka as well.
The
meeting was attended by the President of
UNCA Giampiolo Pioli and the Vice
Presidents among others.
Who might those "authoritative
diplomatic sources" be? Who
is this UNCA Executive Committee
serving? The article is online at http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2012/06/03/new11.asp
After publication of the
article, Inner City Press wrote to
each member of the UNCA Executive
Committee with a copy of the
article, formally asking them to
disassociate themselves from and
bring about the immediate cessation
of this anti press freedom climate
that has led to this article.
None
responded to this request in
writing; only one gave so much as a
phone call. Meanwhile as should have
been or perhaps was foreseen by UNCA
Executive Committee members, the
anti Press flow is increasing.
Click here for
sample UNCA minutes released on
the night of June 1 from behind
Reuters' firewall. Beyond
making clear that censorship of
Inner City Press' Sri Lanka
reporting has been a major focus of
UNCA's leadership since at least
September 2011, these minutes have
material omissions, including that
the complaint of Tim Witcher of AFP
was about reporting on Ladsous, the
fourth Frenchman in a row to head UN
Peacekeeping.
Witcher, at the behest
of the French Mission to the UN,
began the push against Inner City
Press for its reporting that the
Mission didn't know that its capital
had switch to second choice Ladsous
from Jerome Bonnafont, whose
bragging he was getting the post was
also exposd by Inner City Press.
Ladsous then accepted
Sri Lankan general (and alleged war
criminal) Shavendra Silva as a
Senior Adviser.
So -
a war criminal used UNCA to
get Inner City Press thrown
out of its UN work space and
then the UN, for undermining
Guterres (who was also
questioned by Inner City Press
about Cameroon, and
undisclosed financial links
with UN briber CEFC China
Energy). These people are
(war) criminals. We'll have
more on this - for now, here's
more from Kohona (he does not
disclose that he paid UNCA's
Pioli money) --
"he published a
story headed, 'Fish balls (his
term for Sri Lankan fish
cutlets) and wine to tempt the
journalists'. ... He was also
known to exchange information
with diplomats at very
important missions, some of
whom had excellent sources
within Sri Lanka. He was also
a useful tool to some to
embarrass the former
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Subsequently, he began
undermining Secretary-General
Antonio Guterres.
But we mounted a
quiet campaign against him
within the UN press corps
itself with a view to exposing
him and even forcing him to
reveal his financiers.
Information from our own
sources was made available to
many members of the UN press
corps with a view to impugning
the credibility of the man. It
took a while, but his bravado
unraveled when he fell afoul
of the President of the United
Nations Correspondents
Association (UNCA), Giampaolo
Pioli, who commenced
proceedings to take him to
court. Then he began to spar
with a number of respected
journalists who were beginning
to approach us for information
on the man.
Eventually, he
clashed with the Alison Smale,
UN Under-Secretary-General for
Global Communications, who
declared that Lee’s “conduct
has consistently breached” the
UN’s media guidelines and
“does not meet the established
professional standards
required of all correspondents
granted access to United
Nations premises.” As a
result, his accreditation to
cover the UN was withdrawn
consistent with the terms of
the US – UN Head Quarters
Agreement (Agreement Between
the United Nations and the
United States Regarding the
Headquarters of the United
Nations, Signed June 26, 1947,
and Approved by the General
Assembly October 31, 1947).
The UN proceeded to evict him
from the room that he was
occupying and eventually from
the UN itself."
And now even from
HRW's Zoom room - for a press
conference ostensibly about
human rights.
What will Sophie
Richardson,
Sara Kayyali,
Adam Coogle,
and HRW's
funders, 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
|
,
