UNITED
NATIONS, April
9 -- After the
UN raided
Inner City
Press' office
on
March 18,
photographs of
the Press'
desk and
bookshelf
appeared
on
BuzzFeed.com
on March 22.
Stephane
Dujarric
of the UN's
Department of
Public
Information acknowledged
that Inner
City Press
“should have
been called
before
entering”
and
photographing
its office.
But Dujarric
said,
“I personally
looked at
our pictures
and those
posted on
BuzzFeed and
it's clear
that they
are not the
same
photographs.”
But
the
photographs
were provided
to BuzzFeed,
through an
anonymous
“Concerned UN
Reporter”
e-mail
address, right
after BuzzFeed
called UN
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
spokesman
Martin Nesirky
for comment on
the
raid.
Now
Inner City
Press has
learned that
multiple
officials of
the
Department of
Public
Information
(DPI)
including
Dujarric and
some
outside DPI
received
e-mailed
photographs of
Inner City
Press' desk
and bookshelf
on the evening
of March 18,
while
preparing how
to
respond to
media
questions
about the
raid.
DPI's
chief of the
Media
Accreditation
and Liaison
Unit
wrote that
she went
back to Inner
City Press'
office
and "took
pictures.”
It
was three of
these
photographs
which appeared
on BuzzFeed.
What
does it say
about
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's UN
that it raids
the offices of
investigative
media which
watchdog it,
taking and
then
spreading and
leaking
photographs to
try to
undermine its
critics?
Ban
Ki-moon today
is meeting
with Pope
Francis;
on April 11
after
stopping in
New York he
will meet US
President Barack
Obama at the
White House.
Are Ban's
UN's actions
consistent
with the First
Amendment
(and Fourth
Amendment) to
the US
Constitution?
No.
Notably,
when
the New
York Civil
Liberties
Union asked
the UN in July
2012
about its
rules, if any,
for
accrediting
and
dis-accrediting
journalists,
it was
Dujarric who
sent a
response with
no rules,
particularly
for
dis-accreditation.
In
December 2012,
Dujarric who
is in charge
of UN
Television did
nothing
when UN
Peacekeeping
chief Herve
Ladsous directed
his spokesman
to seize
the UNTV
microphone
to try to avoid an Inner City Press questions
about 126
rapes in
Minova by the
Congolese
Army, his
partners.
Video here.
Now Tim
Witcher of
Agence France
Presse has
complained to
UN Security
about
Inner City
Press
questions to
Ladsous, who
is the fourth
Frenchman in
a row to head
UN
Peacekeeping.
This
year, Dujarric
has sent Inner
City Press a formal
letter about
its
verbatim and on
the record
quotes
from the two
top officials
of the UN
Correspondents
Association,
Reuters' Louis
Charbonneau --
who has
asked UN
Security to
act against
the content on
Inner City
Press' web
site -- and
Pamela Falk of
CBS News, who
has twice
this year
issued
legal threats
about
speech (on the
record audio
here) and
writing,
from her
CBSNews.com
e-mail
address.
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