ICP Asks Zeid's
Spox Why Gags Whistleblower,
Guterres Is Asked to Probe
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS,
February 14 – Based on
retaliation against three
separate whistleblowers, UN
High Commissioner for Human
Rights Prince Zeid should be
suspended, it has been
requested of UN Secretary
General Antonio Guterres in a
letter
copied to US Senators Bob
Corker and Ben Cardin,
and UN Special Rapporteur David
Kaye, here.
On February
14 in the morning (New York
time) Inner City Press posed
three questions to Zeid's spokesperson
Rupert Colville, including:
"Hi. Inner City
Press has a few questions it'd
like answers to as soon as
possible:
1) whistleblower Emma Reilly
tells us that “OHCHR now
claims I can't speak because
of the staff rule that 'in no
circumstances should [staff
members] use the media to
further their own interests,
to air their own grievances,
to reveal unauthorized
information or to attempt to
influence their organizations’
policy decisions.' No response
to my email on how this
squares with OHCHR airing
grievances against me by
falsely stating my claims had
been found to be
unsubstantiated.”
Is that in fact OHCHR's
position?
2) In terms of OHCHR calling
things unsubstantiated, on
social media and in a press
release, is OHCHR denying that
the Ambassador of Morocco
financial supported the sale
of Mr Eric Tistounet's book?
3) ....Please state what
happened at the HRC
organizational meeting
yesterday. Please answer these
asap."
Hours
later, and after a UN noon
briefing in which UN deputy
spokesman Farhan Haq called
Inner City Press obsessive and
an "asshole," still not
answer. We'll stay on this.
Back on
February 10, Inner City Press
asked Guterres' deputy
spokesman Farhan Haq about the
request, and about OHCHR
essentially gagging
whistleblower Emma Reilly. Video
here, transcript here
and below.
Haq
declined to respond on the gag
order Inner City Press quoted
(below), and said that the UN
Ethics Office is handling it.
But Inner City Press
understands that the Ethics
Office - whose director Elia
Armstrong has refused Press
requests to answer questions -
has recused itself, leaving an
official from UNFPA to start
from scratch.
While
whistleblower Emma Reilly has
been prohibited by Zeid's
Office from providing the
Press with her substantive
defense to OHCHR's attempt to
trash her, she has authorized
Inner City Press to use this
quote:
"OHCHR now claims
I can't speak because of the
staff rule that 'in no
circumstances should [staff
members] use the media to
further their own interests,
to air their own grievances,
to reveal unauthorized
information or to attempt to
influence their organizations’
policy decisions.'
"No response to my email on
how this squares with OHCHR
airing grievances against me
by falsely stating my claims
had been found to be
unsubstantiated, revealing
unauthorized information by
referring to a confidential
investigation (for harassment,
against Mokhiber and Darrow -
panel found the facts I
claimed were true, Zeid
magically declared the motive
not to be harassment), or
attempting to influence the
Ethics Office decision by
stating I had never been
subjected to reprisals. Still
no news on what the alleged
second investigation was...
Feel free to use the above -
it's legitimate for me to
quote the reason I can't talk
to you, and it's clear from a
glance at the press release
that they broke the very rule
they are using to keep me
quiet."
Here's
from the UN's
February 10 transcript:
Inner City Press:
there's a letter directed to
António Guterres by the
Government Accountability
Project specifically
concerning this whistle-blower
issue and saying [Anders]
Kompass, Miranda Brown, and
Emma Reilly in asking that he
be suspended and
investigated. So I
wanted to know, did he receive
this letter before he set off
on his trip? And can you
respond, Ms. Reilly has told
Inner City Press that she's
been ordered not to speak,
which is contrary to what
Stéphane had said, they've
quoted to her some rule... She
said she's been told the
following: that staff
members should not use the
media to further their own
interests, to air their
grievance, or to reveal
unauthorized
information. She feels
it's unfair because they put
out a press release saying
that her charges are
unsubstantiated. So, in
sum, has he received the
letter? And what's the
process to consider the
request by this group?
Deputy Spokesman: Well,
regarding that, I don't have a
confirmation about a receipt
of a letter. What I can
say is we're aware of these
issues. A lot of these
are processes that are being
handled by different
bodies. The question
regarding Ms. Reilly is being…
is something that has been
looked at and is being looked
at by the Ethics Office.
Regarding what she may have
said to you or not, I think
that that's something you'll
need to take up with the
Office of the High
Commissioner for Human
Rights. They are dealing
with that issue. I
believe that they were simply
responding not to her but to
reporting that came out in
media. So they… so that
is something… they were not
trying to take up anything
involving a dispute with her
so much as responding to
reports that had come out in
different published accounts.
Inner City Press: My
understanding is that the
Ethics Office is actually not
handling this. They've
recused themselves because
they say that she… one of her
charges is against them, so
it's been assigned to somebody
from UNFPA (United Nations
Population Fund), and
basically, the process has
started all over. Is
that… can you confirm that at
least that it's back to square
one?
Deputy Spokesman: I'm
aware that… well, not back to
square one. I believe
that the process is
continuing. I don't have
any further details to engage
on that. Have a good
weekend.
A leaked
UN Ethics Office memo that
raises questions not only
about that Office but also the
UN Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights
was published by Inner City
Press on February 1, here.
On
February 2, OHCHR responded
with press
release and tweet
against the now petitioning
Government Accountability
Project and Inner City Press,
claiming
that Inner City Press'
report - based on the UN memo
- was unfounded, and trashing
the whistleblower, Emma
Reilly.
On
February 7, Inner City Press
asked the spokesman for UN
Secretary General Antonio
Guterres what Guterres meant
when he said he had formed a
committee about - but without
- whistleblowers. From the UN transcript:
Inner City Press:
I've seen the
Secretary-General quoted that
he's formed, quote, committees
to deal with thorny issues,
such as the protection of
whistle-blowers and sexual
exploitation and abuse.
Can you say who's on those
committees, particularly in
the case of
whistle-blowers? Are
there whistle-blowers on the…
Spokesman: On the
whistle-blower, I think he was
referring to the fact that, I
think, just two weeks after or
three weeks after he took
office, there was an agreement
between the staff and the
management, and a new
whistle-blower policy was
issued. And he was also
referring to the task force
being led by Jane Holl Lute on
sexual exploitation and abuse.
Inner City Press: The other
one is, I saw in his schedule
yesterday, he met with the ACT
group, Accountability
Coherence and Transparency,
and particularly given the
third noun in their name, can
you give a readout?
Spokesman: No, I don't
have anything to share on the
transparency… meeting with the
transparency group.
OHCHR's
press release also trashed the
whistleblower, while keeping
in place rules prohibiting her
from speaking to the press.
OHCHR claims, while censoring
rebuttal:
"the staff member
has never faced reprisals. The
staff member has had her
contracts renewed and remains
employed by the organization
on full pay. She has made
allegations against various
managers. These have been
taken seriously, leading to
two separate independent
investigations that have been
carried out to determine
whether or not there is any
substance to her allegations.
In both instances, the claims
made by the staff member were
found to be unsubstantiated."
Inner City Press
replied,
asking OHCHR or
@UNHumanRights to explain how
the finding for example about
Morocco improperly paying for
OHCHR official Eric
Tistounet's book-selling event
was "not substantiated." There
has been no response. If a
response to that, or to
today's GAP request, is
received Inner City Press will
publish it.
On
February 3, Inner City Press
asked UN spokesman Stephane
Dujarric about Morocco's
payments - he refused to
answer - and if the reclusive
head of the UN Ethics Office
Elia Armstrong will come and
answer questions, as for
example her predecessor Robert
Benson did. There has been no
answer.
Now
we can report from a range of
sources that not only did Eric
Tistounet take Morocco's
financial support to promote
his book - he tried to recruit
Moroccan faux NGOs - GONGOs --
to try to make the complaint
go away, seeing if they would
complain about the
whistleblower. This is how the
OHCHR, and wider UN, have been
operating. We'll have more on
this.
Inner City
Press supports the replies of
the Government Accountability
Project, here,
and of the annotator, which we
are putting online
here, along with this
new Kafka-esque game chart.
Eric
Tistounet of the Office of the
High Commissioner for Human
Rights, without Ethics
approval, published a book and
had a member state promote it.
Document
at Page 11. One
pitch mentions the state
of Morocco.
Prince
Zeid's OHCHR responded with a
press
release denying
everything, concluding "the
claims made by the staff
member were found to be
unsubstantiated." Inner City Press
has asked OHCHR this.
But the
Ethics Office memo - on which
UN holdover spokesman Stephane
Dujarric refused to answer
Inner City Press, video
here - admits Reilly's
exposing of Morocco paying to
promote OHCHR's Tistounet's
book created a right to
protection. And the event's
website makes clear Morocco
was paying, against the rules.
That's not "unsubstantiated" -
that's a cover up of
corruption. On this and the
rest, we'll have more.
For now we
only note that Zeid's OHCHR's
self-serving total denial,
seemingly a product of fear of
loss of US funding, has been
welcomed by Pierre Nkurunziza
supporters in Burundi.
And this, from
the annotator:
"They are clearly
panicked, and the OHCHR Press
Release is not saving the
Ethics Office.
This would, of course, be the
same OHCHR that still insists
they did nothing wrong in the
Kompass / CAR sexual abuse
case…...
The question is not whether
there was a casual connection
between Eric Tistounet’s
decision and Cao Shunli’s
death. Eric Tistounet’s
decision gave Emma Reilly
cause to be concerned for the
safety of the human rights
activists in China, and in the
specific case of Cao Shunli,
that concern turned out to be
justified.
The question is whether Emma
Reilly had reasonable grounds
to believe that Eric
Tistounet’s decision might be
misconduct ….. and the Ethics
Office bent over backwards to
say ‘no’!
This would, of course, be the
same Ethics Office as was
involved in “facilitating”
Zeid's misconduct complaint
against Kompass - and didn’t
know that child sex abuse
generally gets a bad rap in
the Press."
Yes,
that's them.
The UN
spokespeople who defended Ban
Ki-moon's corruption to Inner
City Press until the day he
left, and stonewall now, often
say the Ethics Office as
approved this or that. For
example, Ban's mentor and UN
official Han Seung-soo being
on the boards of directors of
Doosan Infracore and Standard
Chartered Bank, which has UN
contracts.
Or Jane
Holl Lute, being on the board
of a railroad, and also a
"senior US administration
official" while being a UN
official. The list goes on.
UN
Ethics Office memo to Emma Reilly,
and on Eric Tistounet, via Inner
City Press by Matthew
Russell Lee on Scribd
But
it gets worse, much worse. As
stated by the memo's annotator
to Inner City Press:
"this is a
whistleblower protection case.
The staff member reported that
OHCHR gave names of Chinese
human rights activists to the
Chinese government. This was
when China was trying to get
on the Human Rights Council.
They prevented a number of
activists from traveling to
Geneva to attend the meetings,
and we know that one of them
subsequently died in police
custody.
OHCHR tried very
hard to keep this quiet, but
one Human Rights Officer, Emma
Reilly, complained about it.
They then retaliated against
her.
Of all the
insanity in this, possibly the
best bit of all is the Ethics
Office arguing that even after
OHCHR deviated from their
usual policy and shared
information with the Chinese
government about which Chinese
human rights activists were
being accredited to attend the
Human Rights meeting, and even
though a human rights activist
DIED after being detained to
stop her traveling to a UN
human rights
meeting..........a UN Human
Rights Officer still does not
have reasonable grounds to
believe that misconduct has
taken place....... so nothing
she said or did is
'protected.' The new
whistleblower policy is a POS
because nothing in it will
give the s/m any comfort when
the Ethics Office bends over
backwards not to recognize
retaliation. There is still
nothing the staff member can
do about this.
Can you make these documents
available on your site?"
But of
course. See more of his
summary here,
and response
to Ethics Office, here.
And see this,
from the Government
Accountability Project which
also requested a reversal of
UN USG Cristina Gallach's
retaliatory eviction of Inner
City Press, without response
from the old
UNSG and old
USUN /
Isobel Coleman
- still UNacted on by the new
SG. We'll have more on this.
***
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