At UN,
UNknown If US
Has LGBT
Issues in Fighter
Training,
Censors' Club
After
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
August 24 --
Why do some
events or
speakers
inside the UN
building get
shunted off
into closed
meetings and
then a private
club, not
filmed or
webcast by UN
Television,
while others
are in public?
On the morning
of August 24,
Inner City
Press went to
cover the UN
Security
Council Arria
formula
meeting about
LGBT victims
of ISIS'
attacks in
Syria and Iraq,
but found a
sign
outside UN
Conference
Room 3 that
the meeting
was "Closed."
Photo tweeted
by
@InnerCityPress
here.
Even as a
speech inside
by the UN
Deputy
Secretary General
was promoted,
there was no
copy of his
remarks in the
UN
Spokesperson's
Office, just a
slew of Ban
Ki-moon
remarks in
Nigeria (Ban's
speech to 150
bankers was
entirely
withheld.)
US Ambassador
Samantha Power
spoke briefly
on her way in,
and it was
said that more
would be said
after.
And lo and
behold, a UNTV
stakeout was
set up for US
Power in the
hall outside
Conference
Room 3. Inner
City Press was
there and
filmed its
setting-up; it
wanted to ask
if the US makes
this issues a
part of its
own training
of fighters in
Syria and
Iraq.
Here
is Periscope
video of US
Power's stakeout,
here.
But this
question
wasn't taken
or allowed. The
which last
time gave
Power
questions to Reuters,
France 24 and
Voice of
America, this
time picked...
France 24,
Reuters and
AP. While it
did not call
on its VOA,
another crew
with USUN
passes filmed
the stakeout
itself.
At the end, as
more was asked
for, it was
said that
Power's
co-speaker
would speak
and take
questions at 2
pm.
But on this
late August
Monday, a day
when the UN
Press Briefing
Room with its
UNTV
webcasting
facilities,
open to all UN
accredited
journalists,
is entirely
open and
available, the
International
Gay and
Lesbian Human
Rights
Commission
and an
advocate from
Syria, Subhi
Nahas, are
being shunted
off into the
non-televised
private club
of the "UN
Correspondents
Association,"
UNCA, now
known as the UN's
Censorship
Alliance,
publicized
only to those
who pay UNCA
money?
More
troublingly,
UNCA and its
board members
have tried to
get the
investigative
Press, which
along with the
new Free
UN Coalition
for Access,
has covered
IGLHRC's
successful
passage
through the
UN's NGO
Committee, here
, thrown out
of the
UN. Is
this the right
venue,
including on
the criteria
of trying to
make the
information
widely
available?
(Inner
City Press
likewise
covered the
process of the
International
Lesbian and
Gay
Association
and the Australian
Lesbian
Medical
Association,
among others
like Freedom
Now, of
which it asked
the ECOSOC
President --
in the UN
Press Briefing
Room, here.
If any member
state asked
for the UN
Press Briefing
Room, IGLHRC's
Jessica Stern
and Subhi
Nahas of Organization
for Refuge,
Asylum and
Migration (ORAM)
could hold
their press
conference
open to all, webcast to the world. Was no country
willing to do
it? Surely the
US would be
willing. Or if
not, the UK,
or Lithuania,
or Chile, or
New Zealand,
or another. So
why not?
Did
UNCA, now the
UN's
Censorship
Alliance,
not explain
this? We may
have more on
this. Watch
this site.
, 
