After
Press Freedom Meeting With
Guterres, CPJ Declines Read-Out,
Guards Order Press Away
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS,
February 23 – After the
Committee to Project
Journalists came to the UN for
a meeting on the 38th floor,
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. 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.
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. This is a scam,
and censorship: the UN's
Censorship Alliance. We will
have more on this.
***
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