Ahmed
Abba, In Jail In Cameroon,
Celebrated 3 Blocks from UN
Whose Guterres Took Statue
from Biya
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS,
November 15 – Three blocks
from the United Nations, the
Committee to Protect
Journalists on November 15 is
given an award to reporter Ahmed
Abba, imprisoned by the government
of Cameroon's 35-year
president Paul Biya. Inner
City Press at noon on November
15 asked UN spokesman Farhan
Haq if UN Secretary General
Antonio Guterres had raised
Abba's case when he met with
Biya in late October,
receiving a golden statue from
him. It appears not. In fact,
the UN under Guterres has an
envoy on Cameroon Francois
Fall who calls non-violent
demonstrators for Anglophone
secession "extremists." This
is the same Guterres who will
be a guest of honor, along
with a non-imprisoned Cameroon
journalist, a month from now
on Wall Street. The same
Guterres whose spokespeople
refused to confirm that he met
with CPJ's presenter Gillian
Tett, and who has, along with
his now rosewood (and
Cameroon) scandal plagued
deputy Amina J. Mohammad, kept
Inner City Press restricted in
the UN for its pursuit of UN
corruption under Ban Ki-moon
(for whom Mohammed also worked.)
After the Committee to Project
Journalists came to the UN for
a meeting on the 38th floor on
February 23, Inner City Press
asked CPJ's Joel Simon for a
summary of what had been
raised. "Not yet," Simon said,
as one of his escorts told
Inner City Press to back away.
Tweeted
video here.
It was a
typical UN scene: a group
promoting a principle outside
of the UN not pursuing it
inside the UN, in order to
maintain access and perceived
influence. So was the UN's
lack of due process for the
Press, noted for example by
Special Rapporteurs Kaye and
Forst, here,
raised or addressed? Now on
May 26 CPJ has announced a new
board chair, Kathleen Carroll
formerly of AP, who tellingly
has a locked / private Twitter
account, @redheadkxc.
How's that
for Press Freedom?
At the
February 24 UN noon briefing
after UN holdover spokesman
Stephane Dujarric made claims
about the UN's commitment to
freedom of the press, Inner
City Press asked him for a
read-out of Guterres' meeting
with CPJ et al. Dujarric did
not provide one; he refused to
answer the question about due
process, telling Inner City
Press "This is not your living
room." Video
here, Vine
Camera here.
Moments
later, as Inner City Press
asked Dujarric about a leaked
UN Peacekeeping letter it
exclusively published earlier
in the day and which
contradicts what Dujarric had
said on the record on February
23, Dujarric simply ran off
the podium and out of the
briefing room. And the UNTV
clip, as "produced" by UN
DPI, cuts the audio mid
question, here
at end. This is the UN's
commitment to responsiveness,
due process and freedom of the
press.
At the UN
for journalists, there is no
law, no due process, no
appeal. And when CPJ reported
on the killing of journalists,
it omitted a journalist killed
right under the UN's nose in
South Sudan, John Gatluak
(Inner City Press reported it
here: CPJ
mentioned only
Syria and the
Middle East in
its press
release. And
in its count
of journalists
killed in
2016, CPJ does
not count for
example South
Sudan
journalist
John Gatluak,
executed in
the Terrain in
Juba.
The United
Nations' Cammaert / cover
up report on its failures in
Terrain also does
not mention Gatluak. It's
like the UN Censorship Alliance.
Click
here for video of Inner
City Press' live-Periscope
camera being grabbed, thrown and
smashed by "journalists" on
December 16 on Wall Street. Who
watches the watchers?
It is the
same as groups speechifying
about accountability not
holding the UN to task for
killing 10,000 Haitians with
cholera, nor for the lack of
prosecutions for peacekeepers'
sexual abuse. The UN talks
about the rule of law but does
not abide by it.
CPJ, including Simon and his
deputy Robert Mahoney, were
informed in detail of the UN's
lack of due process for the
press - but they have done
nothing. 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 eleven months later,
confined.
The
then-US Mission under Samantha
Power and Isobel Coleman, even
petitioned
by the DC-based Government
Accountability Project, did
nothing. Indirectly, a offer
was made of an upgraded pass
if Inner City Press would
agree to a gag order, to which
it would not and will not
agree.
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 is being 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 involving
Jeffrey Feltman
(Dujarric told
ICP its questioning was
"despicable"), and the
use of military contingents
involved in war crimes in
Herve Ladsous' UN
Peacekeeping, as criticized by
new US Ambassador Nikki Haley.
All of this
must change - but hasn't yet,
in 145 days of the "new" UN
Secretary General CPJ met with
in February, Antonio Guterres.
This is a scam, and
censorship: the UN's
Censorship Alliance. We will
have more on this.
***
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