Policy
of UN
Censorship
Alliance to
Tear Down
FUNCA Fliers
Does Not
Apply, Lawless
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
January 25 --
While fear and
anger at free
speech is by
no
means limited
to the UN and
its
Correspondents
Association,
their
amateur
lawlessness
was on display
this week.
After
the Free
UN Coalition
for Access
posted
substantive
fliers, the UN
late Thursday
announced that
all fliers
which do not
have a UN
"BCSS"
stamp of
approval on
them will be
removed over
this coming
weekend.
The
day before
this flier
purge
announcement,
FUNCA posted a
flier about
UN official
Stephane
Dujarric's
refusal to
disclose the
UN's policy
on due process
for reporters.
Dujarric was
asked after he
processed
a June
20, 2012
request for
dis-accreditation
by Voice of
America,
which said it
had
the support of
Reuters
and Agence
France-Presse
and of UNCA,
which it said
met "with
UN officials
(very
quietly)"
to get Inner
City Press
thrown out
of the UN.
The
UN
Correspondents
Association,
now also known
as the UN
Censorship
Alliance, tore
four of these
fliers down,
and covered
over others
with
counterfeit
fliers, after
earlier scrawling
"Looney Club"
and "Dirty
Shirt Club" on
similar
fliers.
Now
the campaign
to silence
criticism has
escalating,
attempting to
use
an old
bureaucratic
rule to outlaw
the posting of
fliers with
substantive
opinion.
But tellingly,
the material
in UNCA's
glassed in
bulletin board
at the
entrance to
the press
floor at the
UN does not
have any BCSS
stamp of
approval.
Will
the UNCA
bulletin
board, on
which they
posted for
months in 2012
a
letter
denouncing
Inner City
Press, be left
up during the
weekend
purge? How
about fliers
by Verizon,
which don't
have the BCSS
stamp
of approval?
How about the
large
photographs of
Security
General Ban
Ki-moon's
spokesman and
head
of
Peacekeeping
Herve Ladsous,
which UNCA
posted right
outside Inner
City Press'
cubicle, BCSS
stamp nowhere
to be seen?
Here
is what the UN
Media and
Accreditation
Unit sent out
at 5 pm on
January 24:
Dear
Resident
Correspondents,
No
individual or
group has
permission to
individually
tape a poster
or
flyer in UN
hallways. Each
poster/flyer
must be
stamped and
signed by
Broadcast and
Conference
Support
Service (BCSS)
which then
posts the
posters/flyers
on the
designated
bulletin
boards. The UN
Administrative
Guidelines for
Posting Flyers
is attached.
In
light of this
policy, MALU
will put in a
request to the
cleaners to
remove this
weekend any
posters/flyers
from the
second floor
of the
Library
building which
is not stamped
by BCSS.
The
problem for
these censors
is that the
attached policy,
which we will
put online
here, by
its terms only
sets rules for
"flyers"
which it
defines as
"A
flyer in this
guideline is
used for
defining a
single page
leaflet
advertising an
event or other
activity
sponsored by
the Permanent
Mission(s)
and/or the
United Nations
department(s)
and held on
the
United Nations
premises --
Secretariat,
DCI, DC2 and
UNICEF."
FUNCA
is not a UN
department or
a country's
Permanent
Mission, and
it is
not
advertising
any event --
as for example
UNCA for
months
advertised its
$250
a plate
December 2012
dinner dance
celebrating
Arnold
Schwarzenegger.
Those flier
did not have
any BCSS stamp
of
approval.
So one
would think
that the FUNCA
flier will not
be touched, at
least by the
UN.
(Lawlessness
may prove
otherwise.)
That UNCA's
increasingly
desperate
"leadership"
will
continue to
deface or
counterfeit
them is
another
matter.
Footnote:
Hand-picked
by the past
president,
UNCA's new
president who
ran
without any
competition is
rarely seen at
the UN except
recently to
received
canned
congratulations
from UN
officials. She
is a lawyer
who works for
CBS,
which itself censored
its affiliate
CNET on a
an
advertisement
Hopper
controversy
recently.
Perhaps this
new faux
legalistic
censorship bid
is no
surprise.
Watch
this site.
, 
