After
Month of UN Abuse and Ban
Inner City Press' Demand to
Guterres to Reinstate or
Recuse Himself
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS
GATE, August 6 -- More than a
month after Inner City Press'
reporter
was roughed
up by UN Secretary
General Antonio Guterres'
Security officers as he
covered the UN Budget
Committee meeting on Guterres'
$6.7 billion budget, a formal
request for full reinstatement
or recusal has been filed to
Guterres, his also vacationing
Chief of Staff and Deputy, see
below. After Guterres' UN banned
Inner City Press from entering
the building while taking no
action against the UN
Department of Safety and
Security (DSS) officers who
engaged in brutality on July
3, then refused
Inner City Press' July 20
question why and went on
vacation location undisclosed
now murkily extended into
Japan, Inner City Press has
filed this: "Secretary
General, I write to request
that you immediately restore
of all my rights as an
accredited journalist at the
UN, specifically that you
reinstate me as a ‘resident’
UN journalist with full access
rights to UN premises,
consistent with the UN Media Guidelines,
as well as the return of my
office. Failing that, I
request that you recuse
yourself and your subordinates
from taking any adverse
decision against me because of
your clear conflict of
interest (and that of your
subordinates) in my case, and
that you refer the matter of
my resident status and access
rights to the President of the
UN General Assembly.
I am a journalist who has been
reporting on the UN and its
specialized agencies since
2005. I was accredited by the
UN in 2005 and was a resident
correspondent from 2006 to
2016, when as I was reporting
on the John Ashe / Ng Lap Seng
UN bribery case I was reduced
to non-resident correspondent
status. My articles, published
at innercitypress.com
are widely read around the
world and, as is relevant
here, in UN Headquarters in
New York and other UN duty
stations, by Member States, UN
staff and by those with an
interest in the workings of
the organization. My articles
are frequently critical of the
UN establishment and its
senior officials. The fact
that I bear witness to
inconvenient truths,
effectively as a whistleblower
undertaking protected
activity, is no justification
for my illegal censure and
ill-treatment.
The decisions taken by the
Secretariat in 2016 to
downgrade my status to
non-resident journalist, and
then in 2018 to withdraw my
access rights and to forcibly
eject me and ban me from the
UN premises are fundamentally
flawed, retaliatory,
unethical, tainted by conflict
of interest and evidence
of corruption. My
physical ejection was also
criminal, and I have filed a
criminal report with the New
York City Police (reference
#2018-017-2848_see attached)
on 4_ July 2018, which report
is still pending.
Your clear conflict of
interest in my case stems from
my reporting, on an ongoing
basis, allegations of
corruption, fraud, serious
misconduct and unethical
behaviour at the top echelons
of the UN, as well as on the
continuing retaliation against
UN whistleblowers. I have
broken the news on many
stories at innercitypress.com
which sadly reflect negatively
on the performance of senior
UN officials, including your
own as Secretary General.
Many of the allegations of
misconduct I have reported
publicly at innercitypress.com
have been substantiated
through ‘duly authorised’ UN
investigations, including the
UN’s gross institutional
failure in responding to the
child sexual abuse and
pedophilia by peacekeepers in
the Central African Republic
(CAR) and the abuse of
authority by senior UN
officials against Anders
Kompass (see
CAR Review Panel Report
A/71/99). The material
I have published on
innercitypress.com has been
used by UN investigators as
evidence in their ‘duly
authorised’ investigations. My
articles continue to break the
news on sexual abuse,
perpetrated by UN peacekeepers
and staff, against vulnerable
people whom the UN is supposed
to protect.
I drew the international
community’s attention to the
human rights violations in the
English-speaking parts of
Cameroon and your apparent
silence in responding to these
abuses, which was noted by
many anglophone
Cameroonians. High
Commissioner for Human Rights
Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein
belatedly issued
a statement on 25 July 2018
condemning the abuses5.
I also reported your apparent
failure to initiate an audit
of the China Energy Fund
Committee / Patrick Ho / Sam
Kutesa UN bribery case, which
has resulted in a US criminal
prosecution
for bribery and international
money laundering.
For years I have reported
publicly the UN’s failure to
protect its whistleblowers,
including high profile cases
such as Anders Kompass,
Caroline Hunt-Matthes, Miranda
Brown and Emma Reilly.
My public reporting of these
failures by the UN to protect
its whistleblowers have now
been substantiated by the UN
Joint Inspection Unit, in
their recent report
and recognised by the UK
Parliamentary Committee on
International Development’s Inquiry
into Sexual abuse and
exploitation in the aid
sector. I have also reported
publicly that the ongoing
retaliation against UN
whistleblowers appears to
violate the US law for the
protection of UN
whistleblowers (Section 7048
of the US Consolidated
Appropriations Act), which
stipulates that the State
Department must withhold 15%
of the US’ annual financial
contributions to the UN unless
the UN “implements” best
practice for the protection of
whistleblowers.
Given that I have publicly
reported allegations of
serious misconduct, wrongdoing
and unethical conduct at the
top of the UN and that these
allegations clearly reflect
negatively on your performance
as Secretary General and that
of your senior officials (your
subordinates), neither you nor
your senior officials can
bring an impartial and
objective view to my case.
The International Code of
Conduct of Civil Servants, to
which you are bound, states:
“Conflicts of interest may
occur when an international
civil servant’s personal
interests interfere with the
performance of his/her
official duties or call into
question the qualities of
integrity, independence and
impartiality required the
status of an international
civil servant.”
The failure to report and
address a conflict of interest
constitutes serious misconduct
under the UN’s Staff
Regulations and Rules. UN
Staff Regulation 1.2 m states:
“A conflict of interest occurs
when, by act or omission, a
staff member’s personal
interests interfere with the
performance of his or her
official duties and
responsibilities or with the
integrity, independence and
impartiality required by the
staff member’s status as an
international civil servant.
When an actual or possible
conflict of interest does
arise, the conflict shall be
disclosed by staff members to
their head of office,
mitigated by the Organization
and resolved in favour of the
interests of the
Organization.”
In the case of a conflict of
interest by the Secretary
General, the matter shall be
referred to the President of
the General Assembly. The UN’s
Office of Internal Oversight
Services’ (OIOS) classifies
‘conflict of interest’ as
‘Category I’ ‘Serious’, the
highest level of misconduct,
“according to the relative
seriousness of the
contravention and risk to the
Organization”.
Further, Article 19 of the
Universal Declaration of Human
Rights states:
Everyone has the right to
freedom of opinion and
expression; this right
includes freedom to hold
opinions without interference
and to seek, receive and
impart information and ideas
through any media and
regardless of frontiers.
Article 10 of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights
states that:
“Everyone is entitled in full
equality to a fair and public
hearing by an independent and
impartial tribunal in the
determination of his rights
and obligations...”
I have not been provided with
access to any such independent
and impartial tribunal.
Instead the Secretariat has
wrongfully and unilaterally
taken on the role of judge and
executioner, with a clear lack
of independence and
impartiality. The Secretariat
claimed in 2016 that it
cancelled my ‘resident’
journalist status because of
my allegedly not upholding the
UN Media Guidelines; however,
notwithstanding my categorial
rejection of this claim, its
decision is in any event
tainted by conflict of
interest and hence
fundamentally flawed. While
you were not in office as
Secretary General at the time
the Secretariat took its
tainted and fundamentally
flawed decision in 2016 to
rescind my resident status,
you have perpetuated the
wrongful decision, injustice
and violation of my human
rights: this must now be
urgently corrected.
As the Secretary General you
have a responsibility to
ensure that the Secretariat
acts with integrity,
independence and impartiality,
and to uphold the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights,
including on freedom of
expression. You have a
responsibility to act
ethically and report and
address any conflict of
interest, such as the clear
one in my case. You have a
responsibility not to engage
in corrupt decision-making
processes, or to place your
subordinates in positions of
conflict of interest.
I therefore demand that you:
1) Immediately rescind the
Secretariat’s fundamentally
flawed, retaliatory, corrupt,
unethical decisions to
withdraw my status as a
‘resident’ UN journalist and
ban from the UN premises –
these unilateral decisions are
tainted by clear conflict of
interest;
2) Immediately reinstate me as
a ‘resident’ UN accredited
journalist and restore all of
my access rights (consistent
with the UN Media Guidelines),
including to a suitable office
in the UN premises,
specifically S-303 from which
I was improperly evicted and
which has been largely unused,
contrary to one of MALU’s few
written rules, since;
3) Failing that I demand that
you report your conflict of
interest and that of your
senior officials in my case to
the President of the General
Assembly, Mr. Miroslav Lajcák
(Slovakia), and that you refer
to him this request for my
reinstatement as a ‘resident’
UN journalist and restoration
of my access rights. The
failure to report and address
a conflict of interest
constitutes serious misconduct
under the UN’s Staff
Regulations and Rules; and
4) In the event you fail or
refuse to implement the
foregoing demands, I request
that you immediately lift the
immunity of those responsible
for my physical ejection from
the UN premises on 4 July
2018, detailed in the attached
complaint to the NYC police,
so that the NYC police may
investigate my complaint
Finally, I urge you to ensure
that your senior officials,
including at the Department of
Safety and Security,
Department of Public
Information, and your
Spokesperson and Deputy
Spokesperson desist from
taking any further retaliatory
actions against me.
For the record, I am alleging
that your Spokesperson
Stephane Dujarric, angered by
my 19 June 2018 critique on
live-streamed Periscope video
of his selective distribution
of your comments, played a
role in my improper ouster
during a 22 June 2018 event
including your speech about
Mali by DSS Lieutenant Ronald
E. Dobbins and four other DSS
officers who refused to give
their names. After you ignored
my 25 June 2018 message
requesting protection, I was
more physically ousted by
Dobbins and another unnamed on
3 July 2018 as I covered the
Fifth Committee meeting on
your peacekeeping budget and
contested Global Service
Delivery Mechanism move of
jobs. The violence of the
ouster(s) about which I am
separately complaining to DSS
is imputable to Dujarric, to
USG Alison Smale and to you.
I believe that my
reinstatement as a ‘resident’
journalist with full
restoration of my access
rights and office would be in
the best interests of the
organization and consistent
with the wishes of Member
States, many of whom continue
to express strong concerns
about my situation and more
generally about the
retaliation against
journalists and
whistleblowers. The
credibility of the UN will be
further eroded if it continues
to retaliate against and
crackdown on a journalist for
exposing wrongdoing and
unethical behavior.
The foregoing is sent without
prejudice and under
reservation of all rights.
Matthew Russell Lee, 5 August
2018
***
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