UN's
Partner UNCA
Selectively
Expels
Members,
Leaving CBS
Retirees In
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
January 30 --
While the UN
preaches, or
pretends to
preach,
multi-party
democracy
around the
world, in its
headquarters
in New
York it
promotes and
partners with
the opposite.
Last
month the new
Free
UN Coalition
for Access
was launched.
It is
advocating for
the rights of
journalists to
be accredited
to, and get
answers for,
the UN.
But
the UN until
now relies on
the UN
Correspondents
Association,
with
which UN
officials met
"very quietly"
in 2012 to
try
to
dis-accredit
the
investigative
Press.
The
same UN
official
involved in
this has
decreed that
the UN's
interface
with UNCA is
exclusive, to
the comical
extent that
even the
kitchenette in
the renovated
UN will be
called the
"UNCA
Pantry."
Today
we have
learned that a
member of
UNCA,
asserting her
UN
accreditation
rights through
the new Free
UN Coalition
for Access,
has been told
by
UNCA that
continued
membership is
not possible,
since "all
UNCA
members must
have
accreditation
at the UN,"
according to
UNCA's
Melanie
Randisi.
But
even a cursory
review of
UNCA's online
list of
members shows
many who have
long left the
UN and not
kept up
accreditation.
One,
affiliated
with UNCA's
new president,
is openly
listed as
"retired."
And
so it seems
clear,
including to
the person now
expelled from
UNCA,
that the
targeting was
to try to
discourage
joining the
Free UN
Coalition for
Access.
This
is also true
for a
counterfeit
social media
account by
UNCA "leaders"
which mocks
those
discussing the
Free UN
Coalition of
Access and
UNCA's weak
record of
advocacy for
journalists'
rights, as
well as
scurrilously
seeking to
link Inner
City Press
with the Tamil
Tigers
of Sri Lanka,
as was done
in an UNCA
Executive
Committee
meeting in
2012, fueling
Sri Lanka hate
media and
death threats.
This
is the UNCA
Executive
Committee with
which UN
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon
blithely has
closed door
luncheon(s),
doling out
quotes that
are
not even
shared with
UNCA's regular
membership.
The
Free UN
Coalition for
Access is
asking and
will continue
to demand
that the UN
allow space
for another
organization,
one which does
not
and will seek
to
dis-accredit
other
journalists.
But
the UN's Media
Accreditation
and Liaison
Unit, for
example,
suddenly
cited an
archaic rule
about flyers
to tell FUNCA
it cannot
exercise
free speech by
putting
substantive
messages in
the place
which UNCA
had its own
promotional
posters.
In
fact, UNCA has
a glassed-in
bulletin board
at the
entrance to
the UN
press area, on
which in 2012
it displayed
for months a
letter
denouncing
Inner City
Press. Did
this letter
have UN
approval? We
have asked the
head of DPI,
several times,
including on
the evening
of January 29.
Watch this
site.
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