UN
Won't Explain
Giving Egypt
State Media
With No Qs
ICP's Office
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, May 20
-- For
ten years as
Inner City
Press covered
the UN in ever
greater
detail,
showing
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
Herve Ladsous'
inept
overseeing and
cover up of sexual abuse and
exploitation
by peacekeepers,
disparate
treatment in
Mali,
dalliance with
genocide
in Sri Lanka
and
prospectively
Burundi, impunity
for cholera
deaths in
Haiti
and
until now for UN
lead poisoning
in Kosovo
and
cravenly
pro-Saudi position
on Yemen amid
the
airstrikes,
it was never
thrown out of
the UN.
Now it
has been. New
York Times of
May 14 here.
And
even as groups
like the
Government
Accountability
Project tell
Ban to reverse
the eviction
and give Inner
City Press
back its long
time office
and Resident
Correspondent
pass, Ban's UN
tellingly
moved to award
Inner City
Press' office
to Egypt state
media
Al-Akhbar /
Akhbar
Elyoum.
Tweeted
photograph
here.
On May
19, a sign for
"Al Akhbar
Yom" went up
on Inner City
Press' office
- Inner City
Press has
STILL never
seen the
correspondent
being given
the stolen
office.
So on
May 20 Inner
City Press
went to get an
on the record
explanation
from Ban
Ki-moon's
spokesman
Stephane
Duajrric,
before Ban
sets out on a
campaign trip
to South Korea
(denied by his
senior adviser
Kim Won-soo).
Since
the spin to
the NYT is
that Inner
City Press'
questions on
corruption and
censorship
somehow block
questions
other
correspondents
want to ask,
Inner City
Press twice
told Dujarric
it would hold
one question
to the end.
But Dujarric,
showing that
the spin is a
scam,
insisted: go
ahead.
So
Inner City
Press asked
him,
factually,
when the last
time he as
spokesperson
remembers
Akhbar Elyom
being in the
brieifing
room..
The UN
says Resident
Correspondents
must be at the
UN three days
a week, but
Inner City
Press has
never seen
this person,
former UN
Correspondents
Association
president
Sanaa Youssef,
much less
asking a
question in
the UN noon
briefing.
The
point, of
course, which
Dujarric did
everything he
could to cut
off, including
walking out of
the brieifng
room and not
returning, is
what does it
say about Ban
Ki-moon's
supposed
commitment to
free press to
evict the
investigative
Press here
every day for
a state media
never here,
never with
questions,
which targets
other
journalists
for arrest?
The
question is in
a sense
answering
itself, but we
will continue.
Dujarric's
deputy Farhan
Haq after the
briefing was
heard telling
DPI staff
under Gallach
that he had
predicted
Inner City
Press would
"go after"
Akhbar Elyom.
This is
today's UN:
here's Haq on
Jan 29, video
here, and
before.
Haq claimed
incorrectly
that "non
resident
correspondent"
passes get one
through to the
second floor:
either years
out of date or
intentional
inaccurate.
This too is
today's UN.
Scribes
speaking off
the record
according to
the New York
Times of May
14 "accused
[ICP] of
printing
gossip,
rumors." That
UNCA's
president
rented an
apartment to
Palitha Kohona
then granted
his request to
screenin the
UN his
government's
war crimes
denial film is
no rumor or
gossip.
But
Akhbar Elyom,
to which
Gallach's and
Ban's MALU and
UNCA have
given Inner
City Press'
office, not
only gets
journalists in
Egypt attested
- it targets,
with a "Muslim
Brotherhood"
smear, a
journalist who
works right in
the UN. Arabic
article here.
This is
the journalism
that Ban
Ki-moon and
his Cristina
Gallach want
and reward. By
taking away
Inner City
Press' office,
it is now
required to
have a minder
and is told to
not ask
diplomats
questions.
This is
censorship.
Akhbar
Elyom has been
used to finger
for
imprisonment
non-state
journalists in
Egypt. For
example, in
July 2015
Aboubakr
Khallaf, the
founder and
head of the
independent
Electronic
Media
Syndicate
(EMS), “was
arrested after
a news article
was published
by the
government-owned
daily Akhbar
Elyoum.”
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