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By Matthew Russell Lee, CJR Letter PFT Q&A, NY Post

UNITED NATIONS GATE, May 20 – Inner City Press on July 5 was banned from entering the UN, the day after it filed a criminal complaint against UN Security for physically removing it from covering the meeting about the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres' $6.7 billion peacekeeping budget, as witnessed and essentially cheered on by senior UN official Christian Saunders, tearing its reporter's shirt, painfully and intentionally twisting his arm and slamming shut and damaging his laptop. On August 17, Guterres' Global Communicator Alison Smale issued a letter banning Inner City Press from the UN - for life. With no due process. She and Guterres have put the UN in the US Press Freedom Tracker, here. Smale said, again, that the UN would answer Press questions to the Spokesman Stephane Dujarric and his Office; Dujarric said the same on camera. On May 17 more than three hours before a UN noon briefing in which Dujarric held a colloquy with his previous eviction partner and the PGA spokesperson got no questions at all while claiming the PGA is for opening up the UN, Inner City Press submitted 846 questions, including why it continues to be lawlessly banned from entering to ask questions in person: "There are more than 500+ questions UNanswered. And Monday Sept 17, Tuesday Sept 18, Wed Sept 19 and  Thurs and Fri Sept 21, that whole week, no questions answered. Nor Sept 25, nor 28th - nor October 2 nor 3. While appreciating and using what was belatedly sent on May 14 about sexual exploitation allegations and on March 28 in partial request to Inner City Press' questions about the UN bribery sentence of Patrick Ho of CEFC and CEFC's 2018 attempt to buy the oil company of Gulbenkian Foundation which paid the SG, no answers on Dec 17 or 18 or 19 or 20 or 21 - another FIVE days in a row, even as SG's direct conflicts of interest and failure to disclose emerge, and a newest low. No answers on January 30 nor 31 nor February 1 nor 4 nor 5 nor 6 nor 7 nor 11 nor 12 nor 13 nor 14 nor 15 nor 18 nor 19 nor 20 nor 21 nor 22 nor 25 nor 26 nor 27 nor March 1 - 27 (!) And now April 1, 3-30 (one answer in the entire month - corrupt), and now May 1-13, 15-17, many questions. No answers at all during those four days of the US v Ho trial showing corruption in the UN says it all. This ban is just censorship - and Inner City Press must be allowed back into the noon briefing to ask its questions in person and follow up on them.

May 20-1: On Sri Lanka, what is the SG's comment and action if any on that ten years since the end of Sri Lanka's brutal civil war, the government has failed to provide justice for the conflict's many victims. The Sri Lankan government pledged to provide justice for wartime abuses and to take other measures to promote respect for human rights in a United Nations Human Rights Council resolution adopted in October 2015. But there has been none to provide justice and accountability. What has the SG done? 

May 20-2: On UN OICT, what is the SG's comemnt and action if any on staff leaks to Inner City Press that, for eaxmple, Jonathan Fisher is another NYCHA transplant who was hired by Riazi at OICT immediately after he was fired from NYCHA.  He has served as a consultant at $67.00 per hour for 20 hours per week to rewrite memos and correspondence drafted by United Nations staff, because, according to Riazi,"their written English is so poor”.  Sources have stated that Fisher is a close friend and business partner of George Carrano, Riazi’s husband, and that Carrano and Fisher have collaborated while in NYCHA on producing an unauthorized book which used NYCHA official material, which has led to Fisher’s firing? 

May 20-3: [rare post article response here.]

May 20-4: On World Bee Day, and as a follow up to Inner City Press story in May 2018 before it was roughed up and banned,  does the UN maintain that the hives the UN's North Lawn produce 250 pounds of honey a year, and that the honey is sold in the UN gift shop with the proceeds to a charity? How much honey? How much money? To which charity? 

May 20-5: On the SG's trip, what is his comment and action if any - did he raise in any way - that Tuvalu's Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga has a motion of no confidence hanging over his government? Non-government MP Isaia Taape has confirmed to Islands Business that he has lodged his no-confidence motion against PM Sopoaga with the office of the clerk to parliament. As Inner City Press asked May 6 without answer, in the run up to SG Guterres' visit there, what is his comment and action if any on that more than thirty union members were in police custody overnight including the national secretary of the Fiji Trades Union Congress, Felix Anthony? 

May 20-6: On press freedom and Gabon, what is the SG's comment and action if any on that  Gabon’s media regulator has suspended the tri-weekly newspaper L’Aube and the weekly Echos du Nord? The High Authority for Communication, Gabon’s media regulator, ordered Echos du Nord to suspend publication for four months following a defamation complaint by the president of Gabon’s constitutional court, Marie-Madeleine Mborantsuo. The authority issued an order suspending L’Aube’s publication for six months for the alleged defamation of Maixent Accrombessi, the former chief of staff to Gabonese President Ali Bongo... What is each of yours - particularly the SG's - response to the letter written and sent by Burundi activist Manisha Lievin? To the April 15 letter to the SG, DSG and USG Smale for which receipt has not even been acknowledged, other than a single lawless line from MALU: "Your media accreditation request, with reference no: M66561081, has been declined"? This is a formal request for the UN's explanation of grounds for this denied, and since SGcentral, the SG's chief of staff and Deputy SG and USG Smale haven't even confirmed receipt of the April 15 letter much less responded, for reconsideration. AGAIN, immediately explain how it is legitimate to ban from enter into the UN the media that has been asking about these and other questions, with no hearing or appeal.

May 17-1: On Burundi, what is the SG's comment and action if any on that Burundi's chief justice has ordered the seizure of property belonging to opposition activists accused of supporting a supposed coup plot against President Pierre Nkurunziza?  The order, signed late Tuesday, targets dozens of government critics accused of spearheading a failed challenge against Nkurunziza in May 2015, when he announced he would run for a controversial third term.  The property and assets belonging to 32 opposition leaders and journalists in exile, and nine jailed military officers, should be "exploited by the state", said the order co-signed by the Supreme Court chief justice and attorney general. 

May 17-2: On Angola, what is the SG's comment and action if any on the police abuse against a political activist- On May 10, 2019 in Luanda, six plainclothes police officers violently forced Hitler “Samussuku” Tshikonde into an unidentified car? The police jailed him unlawfully for 72 hours without charge or access to a lawyer. He was released on May 13 and informed that that he was under investigation for allegedly “insulting the president” in a video that he had posted on social media, and that he should cooperate with the authorities. 

May 16-2: On Sudan, what is the SG's comment and action if any that the new interim vice president, Mohamed Hamdan “Hemeti” Dagolo, was in charge of the janjaweed militias in Darfur? 

May 15-1: On China and the UN, beyond the ban on Taiwan journalists, what is the SG's explanation and/or action on that former political prisoners in China who now reside in the United States were informed by the UN accreditation desk in Geneva that they could not enter the premises without a passport from a UN member state. As political dissidents who have fled from China, the visitors did not have valid passports from the country? Dissidents who flee their home countries due to persecution are often not issued passports from their countries of refuge but are rather issued other valid forms of identification.  

May 15-3: On the Public Financial Disclosures for 2017 belatedly published over the weekend of April 27-28, please state why Mohammed Ibn Chambas, like the Executive Secretary of the UN Biodiversity Convention, Cristiana Paşca-Palmer, UNICEF's Henriette Fore, with documented links to ExxonMobil and others, USG Mark Lowcock (undisclosed while the Secretariat's speaker at the UNSC Arria on Cameroon), UNCTAD's Mukhisa Kituyi, UN Women's Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, UNOG chief Michael Moller, UNDP chief Achim Steiner,  Heidi Mendoza, Adama Dieng, UN Security chief Peter Drennan, Rosemary DiCarlo and Nicholas Haysum, is not even on the list. OIOS chief Inga-Britt Ahlenius reported - why not Mendoza? Where IS Mendoza? Isn't it a bad practice for the UN's head (anti) genocide definition official to conceal from the public even cursory financial disclosure? Did DiCarlo decline to make any public disclosure despite being the UN's top political officer? What is the even plausible applicability of this line from SG Guterres' web page: "Please note that given the multi-cultural environment of the UN and the often security sensitive locations where UN staff are either working or come from, full public disclosure may not always be a viable or sensible option for certain staff members"? Why has Guterres changed the previous system in a which a "choosing not to disclose" statement was upload and listed, to one which helps conceal who reports and who does not?  Again, state why considering the UN bribery conviction of Patrick Ho of CEFC, and CEFC's attempt to purchase the oil company of Gulbenkian Foundation which paid Mr. Guterres in 2016 was omitted from his online public financial disclosure covering 2016, and why Guterres has not even started an audit of CEFC in the UN. 

May 14-5: Also on China, what is the SG's comment and action if any on that China may forcibly deport seven detained North Koreans who face a grave risk of torture and other abuses if returned to North Korea? The three women, three men, and a 10-year-old girl in the group are being detained in Liaoning province. Some of the group left North Korea in recent weeks and others have lived for several years in China’s border area. Chinese authorities apprehended them on April 28, 2019. 

May 2-1: On Indonesia, what is the SG's comment and action if any on the human rights lawyers taking the Indonesian police to court on behalf of West Papuans, in an unprecedented civil case over what she claims is the illegal takeover of an activist group’s headquarters?

April 4-2: On UN bribery and censorship, what now is the SG's comment and response to the April 3 article in Serbia about CEFC which Mr Guterres has refused to audit - and about his refusal to answer, and censorship of Press "Guteres had and had his own financial link with the CEFC, through the Gulbenkian Foundation. On the orders of Guteres, on June 22 and July 3, 2018, the security came to me, and I was banned from reporting from the UN. In fact, Gutereš took advantage of his security from the UN to distance me from his speech at the Park East Synagogue, and recently physically stopped me while he entered the mosque in 96th Street"  and now this  - "Patrick Ho, a businessman who was sentenced to three years in prison for his role in the world's corrupting affair, claims investigative journalist Matthew Russell Li in the documentary "Hong Kong Connection, Patrick Ho's List." Li, in a documentary broadcast on the Hong Kong Radio-Television portal, revealed Jeremic's role in this affair, a tens of millions of dollars, as well as his private dilutes, which he made while serving as the chairman of the United Nations General Assembly.  - Jeremic's testimony at the Ho trial was problematic because he turned out to be working for "CEFC Energy" (a Chinese conglomerate led by Ho, prim. Aut.) While serving as the chairman of the UN General Assembly. He took their money, exchanged e-mails with them ... He did many things. It is surprising to me that the focus of the prosecution was at Ho. The prosecutors used his testimony to show how Ho established a relationship, and in fact what Jeremic was doing might be worse for the public - Li said.  Investigative reporters also uncovered the flows of money flowing to Jeremic's accounts. Hoov CEFC paid Jeremic as a consultant a total of $ 5.3 million. It turns out that some companies that paid this money are completely phantom, because they do not exist at the registered addresses at all."  As always, what is the process of appealing or getting a hearing on the now 274 day ban amid this questions, or process to reapply which was denied summarily on 2 January 2019? How is this not censorship?)  and the translated 22 minute documentary about Patrick Ho and CEFC's bribes through the UN including Mr. Guterres' refusal to answer Inner City Press' question on it on 5 December 2018, and that Inner City Press for allegedly not complying with interview "rules" has been disqualified from reporting within the UN?  Again, the  sentencing memorandum includes quotes from his e-mails regarding aiming to violate sanctions and deal in arms not only to Chad but also South Sudan, Libya & Qatar. What is the SG's comment and action? Again, why has no audit even been begun of CEFC, at least like the one Mr. Guterres' predecessor did of Ng Lap Seng's Sun Kian Ip Foundation? Why did Mr Guterres omit payments from Gulbenkian Foundation, which sought to sell its oil company Partex to CEFC China Energy, from his public financial disclosure covering 2016?  

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