After
Human Rights Watch Meets UNSG,
Ken Roth & HRW Lobbyists
Refuse Any Read-Out
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS,
March 2 – After Ken Roth and
three of his Human Rights
Watch UN lobbyists went to the
UN for a meeting on the 38th
floor, Inner City Press asked
Roth and his lobbyists,
including two former UN
correspondents, for a summary
of what HRW had raised. Had
they raised any abuses by the
UN, like training Burundi's
abusive security forces in
drone use? There was no answer
at all. Video
here. It was a typical
UN scene: a group promoting
principles outside of the UN
not pursuing them inside the
UN, in order to maintain
access and perceived
influence.
Human
Rights Watch speechifies about
accountability but has said
much less about the UN killing
10,000 Haitians with cholera,
or about the lack of
prosecutions for peacekeepers'
sexual abuse. The UN talks
about the rule of law but does
not abide by it.
HRW was informed in detail of
the UN's lack of due process
for the press - but has done
nothing. In fact, HRW's UN
lobbyist Louis Charbonneau at
least twice tried to get Inner
City Press thrown out of the
UN (see here,
obtained under FOIA),
one time misusing
the US Digital Millennium
Copyright Act to try to cover
up his lobbying of the UN to
get Inner City Press thrown
out, here.
One year
ago, covering the UN
corruption scandals which have
resulted in two sets of
indictments for bribery
involving the UN, Inner City
Press was ordered to leave the
UN Press Briefing Room by then
Secretary General Ban
Ki-moon's spokesman Stephane
Dujarric.
Other
correspondents were allowed to
stay in the briefing room,
which Dujarric had "lent"
them. But he insisted that
Inner City Press leave. Video
here.
Inner City
Press asked to see any
paperwork that the event was
closed; none was provided.
Inner City Press stated that
if a single UN Security
official asked it to leave, it
would. Finally one guard came
and said Dujarric wanted it to
leave.
Inner City
Press immediately left,
uploaded the already
live-streamed Periscope video,
and continued digging into the
corruption that's resulted in
the indictment for bribery and
money laundering of Ban
Ki-moon's brother Ban Ki Sang
and nephew Dennis Bahn.
But three
weeks afterward, without a
single conversation or
opportunity to be heard, Ban's
Under Secretary General for
Public Information Cristina
Gallach ordered Inner City
Press to leave the UN, after
ten years, on two hours
notice. Order
here.
This
was enforced, as Inner City
Press worked on its laptop at
the UN Security Council
stakeout, by eight UN Security
officers led by Deputy Chief
McNulty, who tore Inner City
Press accreditation badge off
its chest and said, "Now you
are a trespasser." Audio
here.
Inner City
Press was marched down the
escalator and around the UN
traffic circle, without even
its coat which was up in its
longtime office. It was pushed
out of the gate and its
laptop, in a bag, was thrown
on the sidewalk and damaged.
The next
work day when Inner City Press
arranged for a fellow
journalist to sign it in as a
guest so it could cover the
Security Council, UN Security
official Matthew Sullivan said
it was Banned from UN premises
worldwide. Audio
here.
After three days covering the
UN from the park in front in
the sleet, and articles like
this one, Inner City Press
re-entered with a
"non-resident correspondents"
pass - to which it is still,
more than a year later,
confined.
There has
been no UN opportunity for
appeal or reinstatement. After
having five boxes of Inner
City Press' investigative
files thrown
on the sidewalk in April,
Gallach is giving
its office to an
Egyptian state media Akhbar al
Yom which rarely comes in, a
correspondent Sanaa Youssef
who had yet to ask a single
question.
Her only claim is
that she was once, decades
ago, a president of the United
Nations Correspondents
Association, the group to
which Duajrric "lent" the UN
Press Briefing Room, without
notice or written record, on
January 29, 2016.
Even as the
scope of Ban Ki-moon's
corruption was exposed upon
his return to South Korea, here,
his successor Antonio Guterres
has yet to reverse this year
of censorship and no due
process. On January 6 Dujarric
and Gallach led him on a tour
of... the UN Correspondents
Association, which now wants
him again in their clubhouse.
(More on this to follow.)
On January
27 as Inner City Press moved
to cover Guterres at the UN's
Holocaust event, it was
targeted by UN Security and
told it could not proceed
without a minder, who did not
appear for over 15 minutes.
The
harassment continued through
the day, as Inner City Press
exposed more corruption,
including and the use of
military contingents involved
in war crimes in Herve
Ladsous' UN Peacekeeping.
All of this
must change. This is a scam,
and censorship. This is
hypocrisy at and in the UN. We
will have more on this.
***
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