With
Pillay
in Sri Lanka,
UN Withholds
Info, Press
Group
Attacked
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
August 29 --
Here's how it
works in Sri
Lanka:
after the UN
stood by and
worse during
the
government's
"bloodbath on
the
beach" in
2009, it has
commissioned a
series of
studies the most
recent of
which is still
being withheld
by Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon.
When
UN High
Commissioner
for Human
Rights Navi
Pillay visited
Colombo
this week,
Buddhist monks
mobbed the UN
compound to
protest. Inner
City Press
asked about it
at the UN's
noon briefing
in New York,
and
got back this
sunny report:
Subject:
Your
question on
Sri Lanka.
From: UN
Spokesperson -
Do Not Reply
[at] un.org
To:
Matthew.Lee@innercitypress.com
The
High
Commissioner
for Human
Rights was not
in the
vicinity of
the
peaceful
protests by
the UN
compound in
Sri Lanka
today.
In
fairness, at
least the UN
Spokesperson's
Office
provided an
answer.
Questions
Inner City
Press directed
weeks ago to
Pillay's
office in
Geneva were
acknowledged,
but have still
not been
answered.
Complaints
pour in from
Sri Lanka of
people whose
family members
remain
unaccounted
for trying to
meet Pillay
but unable,
saying she
was "sneaked"
into the
Jaffna library
through a back
entrance with
a "murky
entourage." On
that, we'll
wait for
her final
report.
But
there's this:
the very day
before her
visit, there
was an
Army-involved
violent attack
on the
president of
the new Sri
Lanka
Journalists’
Trade Union,
the SLJTU. It
was August 24
(the day
that
in Damascus
the UN's
Angela Kane
was belatedly
requesting UN
access
to Ghouta,
in an ongoing
story
occupying much
of Inner City
Press' time,
here), and a group
of five men
armed with
knives and
hand grenades
stormed the
residence of
SLJTU
president
Mandana Ismail
Abeywickrama,
The Sunday
Leader's
Associate
Editor.
This
is how it
works in Sri
Lanka.
Footnote:
And
here at a
smaller level
is how it
works at the
UN in New
York.
After Inner
City Press
covered the
background to
a screening of
the
Sri Lankan
government's
film denying
war crimes
inside the UN,
the UN
Correspondents
Association
began a
proceeding
against Inner
City
Press. (Click
here
for an outside
report.)
UNCA
Executive
Committee
members from Voice of
America,
Reuters
and Agence
France Presse
have tried to
get Inner City
Press thrown
out of the
UN.
The Reuters
bureau chief,
it has now
been
documented, spied
for the UN,
turning over
an internal
anti-Press
document
to the UN's
chief accreditation
official
Stephane
Dujarric three
minutes after
promising
not to do so:
story
here, audio here,
document
here. This
has not been
addressed in
any way.
The
new Free
UN Coalition
for Access,
established in
December 2012
to
counteract
such moves,
has now been threatened
by the UN
Department
of Public
Information,
or Inner City
Press has,
with suspension
or
withdrawal of
accreditation
for merely hanging FUNCA's sign
on the
door of its
shared office,
while UNCA
has five signs.
So, @FUNCA_info.
Ah, free
speech
and free press
at the UN.
Watch this
site.
, 
