After
UN Evicted Press, Fight Back
on Colombia, Others Smashed by
UN, Rizvi
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Part of Series,
Video
UNITED NATIONS,
February 22 – Even the day
after getting thrown out of
the UN again, the show had to
go on. The upside was that
there was sometimes UN news
outside of the building. The
downside is that it was often
with the other insider
scribes, and at close
quarters.
The German mission was
having a briefing by its envoy
to Colombia Tom Koenigs. I'd
written about him soon after I
arrive at the UN: he was with
the UN Mission in Kosovo. Now
around the table, on the
German Mission's building's
top floor, were the United
Nations Correspondents
Association insiders: Louis
Charbonneau and Michelle
Nichols of Reuters, and
Reuters retiree Evelyn Leopold
who loudly whispered that I
was an “ageist blogger.” My
point was, why should she take
the first question, for the UN
Correspondents Association, if
she wasn't writing any story
with it?
I asked Koenigs to
compare the impunity
provisions of the Colombia
proposal with, for example,
the lack of prosecutions in
Sri Lanka. He dodged that one
but gave me other numbers.
Just before the briefing ended
I gestured I had to leave. I
didn't want to ride down in
the elevator with this crowd.
But out in the hall the
elevator refused to arrive.
Others started trickling out.
I pulled out my phone to live
tweet, or mock tweet. When the
elevator came I went to the
back corner of it and put my
headphones on. I jogged back
to the UN. Unlike the others,
I had to go through the metal
detector, and the line with
NGOs and tourists.
At the noon briefing,
after asking question on
Africa I asked Dujarric about
the second ouster. From the
UN's transcript, with all the
“uhs” left in:
I wanted to ask you,
yesterday evening, I was
working in the UN… in the
lobby. At 8:00 I was
editing a video of, in fact,
yesterday's noon briefing
there, and I was told by
security that I had to
leave. I was marched out
and left the building.
And I wanted to know, since
I've heard you and Ms.
[Cristina] Gallach make
various representations about
this pass, what is the rules…
what are the rules about
that? What… what… on
what authority… I've seen
other non-resident
correspondents staying and
working in the building past
8:00. Why did this
happen?
Spokesman: Well,
frankly, I think if you read
the media accreditation
liaison rules on non-resident
correspondents, which you
agreed to when you signed for
the new pass, it's pretty
clear that it says that
non-resident correspondents
are allowed in the building
between 8 and 7 p.m. unless
there's obviously… unless
there is a meeting going
on. The fact is by 8:00
p.m. there were no more
meetings going on. I
don't think it is our
responsibility to find a place
for you to work once the
meetings are [not] going
on. You also have access
to the bullpen, which may be
more comfortable than a wooden
bench in the lobby, but that's
your decision. The point
is that you have access to
this press conference room, to
the stakeouts, but it's not my
responsibility to find you a
comfortable place to work
after working hours.
[cross talk]
Question: I'm not asking
about comfort. I'm
asking about… I've been in the
bullpen. There have been
people there since 8:00, so I
feel like I'm being targeted
by security based on my
reporting
Spokesman: The rules…
[cross talk] The rule's
that non-resident
correspondents are allowed to
stay in the building after 7
p.m. if they are accompanied
or sponsored by a resident
correspondent.
That is nowhere in the
rule book - it only says that
the non0resident pass works to
ENTER only between 8 am and 7
pm. But when the spokesman
will just make up rules, to
justify whatever the guards
do, it's like living in a
little Burundi, with Ban
Ki-moon as Pierre Nkurunziza.
And Dujarric continued this.
I was invited to give a talk
in Washington, not about the
UN UNfortunately but about the
previous thing I'd worked on,
banks not lending in poor
neighborhoods. I jumped at the
chance to get away from days
like a rat getting chased in
and out of the UN. Maybe I
could rekindle relations with
some Congressional staffers
too, who had helped me when
Voice of America tried to get
me out in 2012. I emailed them
and headed to Penn Station.
Looking out the window
at the wastelands of New
Jersey, instead of being
caught in the moment to moment
struggle with UN Security and
UNCA scribes pushing my arm
down when I Periscope, I
started thinking of others to
whom this has happened at the
UN, or something like it.
When I first got to the
UN, bright eyed and almost in
awe of the old media
correspondents in the briefing
room, the New York Times wrote
a piece about me as the first
blogger at the UN. But
actually there was another
guy, older, who wrote only
online: Pincas Jawetz. He
wrote about the environment,
and ended up getting thrown
out for failing some UN
accreditation test of 60% of
one's context being original.
Whether even 10% of
what Reuters churned out was
original was not consider by
the UN. The goal was to target
Pincas, who has the temerity
to ask if the crisis in Darfur
wasn't caused by climate
change. People laughed; they
started to try to cut off his
questions, as they did more
recently with Ronda who asked
about North Korea. There is a
group think, and a hierarchy.
Pincas was thrown out but he
said it was OK with him. He
still got into the UN whenever
he was in New York, using an
NGO badge. “You keep fighting
them,” he told me.
With Haider Rivzi, it
was another story. He'd
already been at the UN for
years when I got there,
writing about the indigenous
and disarmament for a place
called IPS. He would sometimes
drink and telling people he
loved them. Once when UNCA's
Pioli was trying to talk me
into taking an article about
him off the Internet, Haider
came into UNCA small temporary
room and said, Why can't you
two get along?
Pioli's response was to
pour Haider a large glass of
vodka and sent him on his way.
“That's all he wants,” Pioi
told me. I stayed distracted
as Pioli demanded censorship.
Why give an alcoholic vodka?
Finally Haider
was stripped of his UN desk;
the head of MALU at the time
even called another media
which was accrediting him and
told them not to do it. So
Haider became, like I was now,
a non resident correspondent,
trying to work at night in the
corner. Guards harassed him,
the UNCA big wigs mocked him.
Finally he left New York to
his native India, where word
reached me he died. I cried;
UNCA who had along with the UN
killed him put his picture on
their glassed-in bulletin
board. It was disgusting. And
now they were trying to Haider
me. F*ck them, I said out loud
on the train between Trenton
and Philadelphia. I'm not
going to go out like Pincas,
much less Haider. These f*ckers
must be fought. Then I turned
on my computer, using Amtrak
wi-fi to watch UN webcast. I
tweeted mocking tweets, and
tried to prepare for DC.
Wasn't the US the biggest UN
funder?
***
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