In Other Media-eg New Statesman, AJE, FP, Georgia, NYT,  Azerbaijan, CSM Click here to contact us     .

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 10 – At the UN, the door for access to the public gallery of the UN Security Council had been locked for days, now allowing some favored correspondents in but Inner City Press not. UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric was dismissive on April 6, telling Inner City Press "Welcome to the UN" - a UN he evicted Inner City Press from. On April 10, Dujarric came in 10 minutes late to his briefing, whistling. When asked by an Egyptian journalist about Sisi's crackdown on the media, which Inner City Press has repeatedly asked him about, Dujarric demanded, What's your question? He evicted Inner City Press, and its long time work space has been assigned to Sisi's state media Akhbar al Yom, in the form of retiree Sanaa Youssef who has not asked the UN a question for ten years. But that's the way the UN and Dujarric like it. Inner City Press submitted three more questions, even after Dujarric and his deputy answered only one of the three submitted on April 9. The April 10 questions: "This is a request for the UN's specific response to published allegations about its UNOCA SRSG Bathily, with regard to silence on Gabon, reported here and here, including any response the UN sends to either publication. 2) Please confirm (or deny) that “U.N. Office on Drug and Crime, in cooperation with the governments of Japan and Denmark, has opened a “terrorism prevention” office in Baghdad, with the aim of tracking terrorism-related crimes like humans, drug, oil and antiquities trafficking” and if confirm, specify the arrangement, financial and otherwise, between this UN body and Japan and Denmark. 3) Again - as I requested Friday - please confirm receipt by DPKO of the letter(s) about deployment of unvetted Sri Lanka soldiers to UNIFIL, and provide UN comments / response to the issues in the letter. And yesterday's questions on Somalia / Somaliland and Kenya, and the others unresponded-to." On April 9, before Dujarric began "his" briefing with no one in the front row, Inner City Press submitted three questions in writing: "On Kenya, please provide UN response to / comment on published “reports that President Uhuru Kenyatta was lobbying for Raila to get a position as a special envoy at the UN following the recent reconciliatory handshake.” Now that Somalia has seized $9.6 million from a UAE plane at the Mogadishu airport, this is a second request for the UN to amplify or explain its previous answer to Inner City Press, that the dispute about Somaliland's port and base is a bilateral matter between Somalia and the UAE. Please provide the UN's comment on the arrest of former UN HABITAT Afghanistan Country Representative (and WHO adviser) Peter Danglish for pedophilia in Nepal." At the April 9 noon briefing, none of these were answered; in fact, no one asked about the pedophilia arrest. But after the briefing came this email: Here has been the response: Regarding the arrest of Peter John Dalglish, which has been reported in the media. Mr. Dalglish is not a current staff member or consultant with the UN, though he has previously been employed by the UN. The United Nations has a zero tolerance for sexual exploitation and abuse, and takes seriously any allegations against staff, volunteers, associates and implementing partners. The United Nations in Nepal has no comments on the specific case, but expects that justice will follow due process in accordance with Nepali law." The zero tolerance is called into question by, among other things, the bogus investigation of Luiz Loures at UNAIDS, and the now long delayed investigation at UNSOS in Somalia. Inner City Press has been informed, and now exclusively reports, that there are also sexual exploitation and abuse allegations at the UN Support Office in Somalia in Somalia (UNSOS), whose outgoing director Hubert Price Inner City Press previously questioned about negligent imposition of sewage on Somalis. The UN belatedly confirmed the investigation on April 6, when Inner City Press asked for the second time. Video here; from the UN transcript: Inner City Press:  I had another question about the UNSOS.  I had asked you about a… a sexual exploitation investigation by OIOS [Office of Internal Oversight Services] that I've heard is taking place there, against a D1.  I know the name of the individual, but I just… I've been wanting you to respond, given how seriously this is being taken in the UN, will you confirm or deny this OIOS investigation?

Spokesman:  My understanding that allegations were indeed reported to the UN Support Office in Somalia November of 2017 and subsequently posted on the conduct and discipline website.  The Support Office is currently reviewing the allegations of exploitative relationship, which involves an international civilian in view of collecting sufficient information to conduct an investigation if warranted.

Inner City Press: And I just want to confirm… if you could confirm that the alleged victim here is themselves a UN…?

Spokesman:  No, I'm not able to do that." Why not?" On March 27, Inner City Press asked and was told it was at the request of the Office of the President of the General Assembly, so that people didn't "wander" into their office on the UN's third floor. Since then, ghoulishly, the door has been unlocked to some journalists and not others -- the Press evicted by the UN cannot get through, and missed a Council stakeout. This is the two tier carrot and stick UN of Antonio Guterres and Alison Smale - if you don't criticize the UN you have access, if you pursue UN corruption stories, you are hindered. At the March 27 UN noon briefing, Inner City Press for the Free UN Coalition for Access asked the spokesman for the PGA, who said on camera that he would look into it. Video here. Later he emailed Inner City Press: "I can confirm that OPGA did not make any sort of request to have the 3rd floor doors locked. That was a decision by UN Security. In that regard, questions on this matter should be directed to the UN Secretariat." But on March 28 the door remained locked (Inner City Press Periscope video here). So at noon on March 28 Inner City Press asked Secretariat spokesman Farhan Haq, who didn't answer during the on camera briefing but later emailed Inner City Press this: "UN Security has explained that the doors are locked as a security measure to prevent any visitors wandering away from their guided tour into the Secretariat Building.  Once they are in this building, they said, they have full access to most of the floors." So it's true - in the name of keeping the public out (of the Secretariat), the UN is keeping people out of the public gallery of the Security Council. And where is the Department of Public Information, which is supposed to advocate but instead engages in censorship? Before a 9:20 am photo opportunity before the meeting of German Foreign Minister Heike Mass and Secretary General Antonio Guterres, many complained about the door, about reclusive head of UN Department of Public Information Alison Smale and her too-friendly interlocutor, the UN Correspondents Association. "All they want to do is have parties," a long time UN correspondent, not this one, said. This UN Department of Public Information, acting against Press coverage of UN corruption cases, without hearing or appeal had Inner City Press physically ousted from the UN.  Audio here.

 And now, as with the door on the 4th floor that allows only "resident correspondents" to use the bathroom, there are two tiers of access to the Security Council. The Press which alone asked about the restriction on all at Stephane Dujarric's noon briefing - is left without access, others who didn't ask (and in the case of Egypt state media Akhbar al Yom's Sanaa Youssef don't come and and haven't asked a question in ten years) now have more access. State media indeed.

 On April 6 Inner City Press asked UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric, who's throwing out Inner City Press from "his" UN Press Briefing Room led to its eviction from its office and restrictions since, about the double standard on the door to the UNSC public gallery. Dujarric, as he had been in the hallway before the briefing, was dismissive, saying "That is the UN." Yeah - and? It's a corrupt institution that doesn't even pretend to live up to the "principles" it purports to espouse.

 Since then DPI's requirement that Inner City Press unlike other media have minders to stake-out public events in the UN has continued.  On March 22 Inner City Press sought to cover the General Assembly event on water, with for example Lake Chad having shrunk by 90%. But to get to the GA, unlike other state and sycophant journalists, Inner City Press had to get a DPI minder, and then had to build its own cage, admitted of blue rope. There were already journalists there, with no cage, including one from a country under multiple sanction. But today's UN trusts their state media, not the investigative Press. UNTV didn't even have Antonio Guterres' speech on, initially. But outside, even behind the rope, Inner City Press was approached by the Permanent Representative of out of the Lake Chad countries, who said if nothing is done in ten years the Lake is gone. The decade of water - will today's UN fail again? The rapper Pitbull cancelled on the UN, for an 11:15 am press conference.
The UN has been targeting not only Inner City Press for censorship through its Department of Public Information under Alison Smale, but also its sources, for retaliation. It was reported and quoted here:  "Looks like UN is making efforts to ID people who send stuff to media: 'Identified a computer used to print an email that was later leaked to Inner City Press, by correlating an URL on the top of the leaked document with Webmail & DHCP logs.' Are they punishing whistleblowers?"

Well, yes. And the investigative Press.

On March 14, Inner City Press asked UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres' deputy spokesman Farhan Haq about the above-quoted and he said, since the UN has confidential information it can and does investigate leaks and leakers. Video here. The decay or need for reform at the UN Department of Public Information was shown again on March 12, when DPI's UN Photo called Arancha Gonzalez of the ITC the UN National Security Adviser, here, and on March 14, when its Alison Smale found time to praise with presence the Saudi event on women, Periscope here (Smale was called USG for DPI and not "global communications" as she aspires to - apparently it justifies her ongoing lawless censorship) while still not responding to months of petitions about having content neutral rules for free press.  This came just days after March 9, when DPI's now flagship UN News mis-named the UN's scandal plagued peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic “MONUSCO” instead of its actual name MINUSCA. Photo here; DPI also mistakenly called Najat Rochdi a "High Commissioner." That came on the same day that DPI chief Alison Smale was criticized, both fairly and unfairly, in a General Assembly meeting held in the Trusteeship Council. Inner City Press, covering the meeting but only with the escort or minder that Smale's DPI requires of it but not more than a hundred less prolific, less critical and seldom present correspondents, put questions after Smale's holdover adviser Hua Jiang sped out of the meeting to a critic, then politely to Smale herself. She acknowledged little action to date on the criticisms, at least one of which should have been directed to the Department of General Assembly and Conference Management. But all bureaucratic niceties aside, how can a former New York Times editor have presided without explanation or response over a system of press accreditation with no rules, with blatant targeted restrictions, for more the six months? In October Smale said she acknowledged the need for the “courtesy” of a response to the Press' petitions - which has yet to come - and on March 9 seemed to indicate an acknowledgment of the need for rules. But where are they? After the reiterated exchange, Inner City Press demurred for days. On March 12 it reiterated the request for rules, to Smale, Guterres and his chief of staff, and Deputy Amina J. Mohammed: "Dear USG Smale, SG Guterres, DSG Mohammed & CdC Ribeiro: I am writing to formalize my oral request to USG Smale on March 9. Specifically, that Inner City Press be given an opportunity to be heard on why, after now more than two years of restricted access to the UN for having pursued the Ng Lap Seng UN bribery story into the UN Press Briefing Room, it should be restored to its long time office and resident correspondent status. Beyond my particular case - on which Special Rapporteur David A. Kaye wrote to DPI about the lack of due process, here. There is as I mentioned again to USG Smale on March 9 the need for UN rules not only on how a journalist gets due process before any eviction, but also for how a once-evicted journalist can pursue reinstatement. I have been told I am not even on any list, as correspondents who ask less and produce less than I do about the UN have come after I was evicted, and been made resident correspondents. I have covered, among other stories, Cameroon, DPRK, Sri Lanka, Yemen, Sudan, the new (Nov 2017) UN bribery case of Patrick Ho and CEFC China Energy and the issues raised by a UN Security Inspector openly praising a controversial GA speech (the Iran bomb fuse cartoon speech), in both 2016 and this month - and for this last story, I'm told I face further complaints or restrictions. Similarly lawlessly, as I live-streamed on Periscope a recent SG photo op with Egypt's new Ambassador I was suddenly told by UN Security that I could not record audio, even as UNTV recorded audio. This is Kafka-esque and must end, this month which marks the 25th month. I will be trying to cover the UNSC and CSW, with the absurdly required DPI minder or escort. A meeting on this should be held this week by USG Smale or one of you." 24 hours, nothing. We will continue on this. The deadline is now. Watch this site.

***

Feedback: Editorial [at] innercitypress.com

UN Office: S-303, UN, NY 10017 USA

Reporter's mobile (and weekends): 718-716-3540

Search innercitypress.com  Search WWW (censored?)

Other, earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.

 Copyright 2006-2018 Inner City Press, Inc. To request reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at] innercitypress.com for