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UNITED NATIONS,
October 26 – During the UN
Third (Human Rights)
Committee's presentation on
Iran by Special Rapporteur
Asma Jahangir on October 25,
Saudi Arabia complained that
Syria was talking about it,
and not Iran. When the chair
of the committee asked Syria
to "focus" on Iran, the Syrian
representative began to
contest if Saudi Arabia had
appropriately made a point of
order. Things grew heated and
soon the Syrian representative
had his microphone cut off -
leading him, predictable, to
speak louder - and face a
threat that UN security would
be called. Finally the meeting
was suspended for ten minutes.
Inner City Press, which due to
UN censorship had to get a UN
minder to reach the meeting it
was covering on the second
floor, could due to the same
restrictions not get down to
the Third Committee right
away. When it did, this
Periscope video from the photo
booth shows the scene. On
October 26, Inner City Press
asked Asma Jahangir what she
thought of what happened. She
said she was "disappointed,"
that the UN is a "house of
diplomacy." Well, the UN is
willing to physically remove
the investigative Press and
throw its files out onto First
Avenue, here. When UN Special
Rapporteur David A. Kaye held
a short press conference at
the UN on October 25, he
called for the UN to institute
an access to information
policy. Inner City Press asked
him to specify what the UN
Secretariat of Antonio
Guterres can and should do on
its own, without waiting for
or blaming the General
Assembly. Inner City Press
also asked him about the UN
new October 20 threat
to review its accreditation,
including for ill-defined
violations on an unspecified
date on the UN's 38th floor.
Video here.
Kaye said the
Secretariat can act on FOIA,
while educating and bringing
the General Assembly along. He
called unsatisfactory the UN's
previous response
to his inquiry
about the eviction of
Inner City Press (for covering
an event in the same UN Press
Briefing Room Kaye spoke in).
Kaye said he looks forward to
speaking with new (seven week)
head of the Department of
Public Information Alison
Smale.
Fine - but the
October 20 threat was issued
under Smale, and she has still
not responded to twopetitions
to her in September to reverse
20 months of restrictions and
restore Inner City Press to
its long-time shared work
space, currently assigned to a
no-show, no-question Egyptian
state media, Akhbar al Yom,
which came in only for "faux pooling"
of Guterres meeting with Sisi,
here. We'll have more on all
that. Kaye field questions
about BBC in Iran, Trump and
citing a lack of mobility for
journalists in Japan, on which
we may have more.
The UN delivered a threat
to Inner City Press to
“review” it accreditation on
Friday afternoon at 5 pm. The
UN official who signed the letter,
when Inner City Press went to
ask about the undefined
violation of live-streaming
Periscope video at a photo op
by UN Secretary General
Antonio Guterres, had already
left, minutes after sending
the threat. This comes two
days after Inner City Press asked Guterres about the
UN inaction on threatened
genocide in Cameroon, and the
UN claimed
Guterres hadn't heard the
15-second long question.
It also
comes after Alison Smale the
head of the Department of
Public Information which would
“review” Inner City Press'
accreditation has ignored threeseparatepetitions
from Inner City Press in the
six weeks she has been in the
job, urging her to remove
restrictions on Inner City
Press' reporting which hinder
its coverage of the UN's
performance in such crises as
Yemen,
Kenya,
Myanmar,
and the Central African
Republic where Guterres
travels next week, with
Smale's DPI saying its
coverage of the trip will be a
test of its public relations
ability. But the UN official
who triggered the complaint is
Maher Nasser, who filled in
for Smale before she arrived.
His complaint is that audio of
what he said to Inner City
Press as it staked out the
elevators in the UN lobby
openly recording, as it has
for example
with Cameroon's Ambassador
Tommo Monthe, here,
was similarly published.
A UN “Public Information”
official is complaining about
an article, and abusing his
position to threaten to review
Inner City Press'
accreditation. The UN has
previously been called
out for targeting Inner
City Press, and for having no
rules or due process.
But the UN is entirely
UNaccountable, impunity on
censorship as, bigger picture,
on the cholera it brought to
Haiti. And, it seems, Antonio
Guterres has not reformed or
reversed anything. This threat
is from an official involved
in the last round of
retaliation who told Inner
City Press on Twitter to be
less "negative" about the UN -
amid inaction on the mass
killing in Cameroon - and who
allowed pro-UN hecking of
Inner City Press' questions
about the cholera the UN
brought to Haiti and the Ng
Lap Seng /John Ashe UN bribery
scandal which resulted in six
guilty verdicts. We'll have
more on this.
***
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