UN
Denies
Re-Accreditation
Bid of Inner
City Press In
Face of Sri
Lanka
Propaganda,
Fueled by UNCA
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
June 4 --
After three
times last
week telling
Inner City
Press its
request for
re-accreditation
to cover the
UN would be
granted on
Monday,
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
Media
Accreditation
and Liaison
Unit on June 4
reversed
course and
declined
to process the
renewal
request.
This
comes after a
June
3 article in
the Sri Lanka
government
aligned
newspaper
Sunday
Observer that
"the United
Nations
Correspondents’
Association
(UNCA) has
initiated an
inquiry
against Inner
City Press
correspondent
Matthew
Russell Lee...
The sources
said if the
allegations
against Lee
are proven, the UN
headquarters
will be made
out of bounds
for him."
The article
also discusses
imprisonment,
and has led to
fall-out.
In
the run-up,
which included
UNCA President
Giampiolo
Pioli
demanding that
Inner
City Press
remove from
the internet
coverage of
his prior
financial
relationship
as landlord
with Sri Lanka
Permanent
Representative
Palitha
Kohona, Inner
City Press at
least four
times last
week asked
MALU to grant
a renewal of
accreditation,
ideally for
more than one
year to take
the issue of
retaliation
for the
content of
reports off
the table.
While
there are a
number of
collegial UN
staffers in MALU,
the Unit had
already this
year cited
UNCA as a
basis to ban
Inner City
Press from covering
whether
meetings of
Ban's Senior
Advisory Group
on
Peacekeeping
Operations
continued to
include the
participation
of Sri Lankan
general and
alleged war
criminal
Shavendra
Silva.
Inner
City Press
had become
aware that Reuters' Louis
Charbonneau,
UNCA's First
Vice
President, had
filed a
complaint with
MALU
against Inner
City Press,
sending copies
to Pioli,
Voice of
America's
Margaret
Besheer and
AFP's Tim
Witcher, but
not to Inner
City Press.
Ironically,
while
MALU told
Inner City
Press on May
31 and June 1
that it was
too busy
with Rio Plus
20
preparations
to even look
at Inner City
Press'
request for
reaccreditation,
it is
understood
that
Charbonneau on
June 1 asked
for
re-accreditation
and even new
accreditation
for four
Reuters
technicians --
and had the
request
approved that
same day by
MALU after a
single phone
call.
They say the
UN has double
standards,
but this too
some is too
much.
Inner
City Press
based and
bases its
request for
re-accreditation
on this:
I
am writing now
to renew my
accreditation
to cover the
United
Nations. While
I have written
exclusive
articles such
as on March
28, 2012
reporting that
US official
Jeffrey
Feltman will
come to work
for the
UN, used with
credit by
Foreign
Policy's "The
Cable" but
without
any credit by
Reuters on May
21, I have
become
concerned that
the current UN
allows
expulsion
threats to
media in order
to censor
critical
coverage. So I
am formally
requesting
that, today,
my
accreditation
be extended --
for at least
one year, but
I am in
context
requesting a
longer
extension.
To
explain this
longer-than-one-year
request,
consider for
example that
after the
Mission of Sri
Lanka sent a
letter to the
President of
UNCA, to whom
he previously
paid money,
complaining
about my
coverage
of the
reported
40,000
civilians
killed by his
government in
May
2009, the
President of
UNCA not only
screen the Sri
Lankan
government's
genocide
denial film
inside the UN,
but threatened
to
have me
"thrown out of
the UN."
Similarly,
after I
reported that
the French
Mission to the
UN was so out
of touch with
Paris that it
did not know
that Herve
Ladsous and
not Jerome
Bonnafont was
France's
person to head
UN
Peacekeeping,
Agence France
Presse moved
to get UNCA to
denounce the
reporting.
Only
yesterday,
Ladsous
himself on
camera said he
would refuse
to answer my
questions
about the UN
role in
cholera in
Haiti, and Sri
Lankan alleged
war
criminal
Shavendra
Silva now
advising Ban
Ki-moon,
because of my
reporting.
In
this context,
it is
imperative
that you and
the UN
immediately
provide a
renewed
accreditation
for much more
than one year.
That
remains the
request. Watch
this site.
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