At UN,
Censors' Club
To Put LGBT
Advocates
Behind Closed
Doors
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
August 21 --
Why do some
events or
speakers
inside the UN
building get
shunted off
into a private
club, not
filmed or
webcast by UN
Television,
while others
are in public?
On August 24,
a day when the
UN Press
Briefing Room
with its UNTV
webcasting
facilities,
open to all UN
accredited
journalists,
is entirely open
and available,
the International
Gay and Lesbian
Human Rights
Commission
and an advocate
from Syria,
Subhi Nahas,
are being
shunted off
into the
non-televised
private club
of the "UN Correspondents
Association,"
UNCA, now
known as the UN's
Censorship
Alliance,
publicized
only to those
who pay UNCA
money?
More
troublingly,
UNCA and its
board members
have tried to
get the
investigative
Press, which
along with the
new Free
UN Coalition
for Access,
has covered
IGLHRC's
successful
passage
through the
UN's NGO
Committee, here
, thrown out
of the
UN. Is
this the right
venue,
including on
the criteria
of trying to
make the
information
widely
available?
(Inner
City Press
likewise
covered the
process of the
International
Lesbian and
Gay
Association
and the Australian
Lesbian Medical
Association,
among others
like Freedom
Now, of
which it asked
the ECOSOC
President --
in the UN
Press Briefing
Room, here.
If any member
state asked
for the UN
Press Briefing
Room, IGLHRC's
Jessica Stern
and Subhi
Nahas
of Organization
for Refuge,
Asylum and
Migration (ORAM)
could hold
their press
conference
open to all, webcast to the world. Was no country
willing to do
it? Surely the
US would be
willing. Or if
not, the UK,
or Lithuania,
or Chile, or
New Zealand,
or another. So
why not?
Did
UNCA, now the
UN's
Censorship
Alliance,
not explain
this? We may
have more on
this. Watch
this site.
, 
