AFP
& Reuters
File Complaint
Against ICP's
Free Speech,
UN Has No
Rules
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, March
11 -- The UN's
ongoing lack
of basic due
process rules
for
journalists,
and the
pretextual
attempts by
big media like
Reuters and
Agence France
Presse to get
the
investigative
Press
thrown out of
the UN, came
to the fore on
Monday
afternoon.
A
UN Security
officer
approached
Inner City
Press to say
that AFP's Tim
Witcher and
Reuters had
“filed a
complaint,”
and that Inner
City
Press should
respond in
writing.
Inner
City Press
asked to see a
copy of, or at
least get a
summary, of
the
two wire
services'
complaint. It
seemed amazing
that a verbal
disagreement
on Friday, not
begun by Inner
City Press,
could be the
basis of a
complaint that
the UN would
accept.
Inner City
Press
asked, again,
what
are the rules?
None
of these
questions were
answered. We
will await a
copy of
summary of
the complaint.
For now, here
is the
context, which
UN Security
should
have checked,
or still
should check,
before
processing a
frivolous and
pretextual
complaint from
Tim Witcher or
AFP.
Back
in September
2011, Witcher
made a
baseless
complaint
within the UN
Correspondents
Association
Executive
Committee that
AFP was the
source of a
portion of
Inner City
Press'
exclusive
report on how
France dumped
Ladsous on the
UN as a last
minute
replacement
for
Jerome
Bonnafont.
Witcher
was
angry that
Inner City
Press
reported,
correctly,
that even the
morning of the
announcement
the French
Mission was
unaware of the
switch that
had been made
in Paris, from
Bonnafont to
Ladsous - who,
notably, had
been rejected
for the same
job by former
Secretary
General Kofi
Annan.
Witcher
wrote
to another
UNCA “leader,”
Reuters' Louis
Charbonneau of
Reuters as
well as the
now gone UNCA
president to
request
some kind of
action by UNCA
over a story
published by
Inner
City Press
about the new
head of UN
peacekeeping
in which the
correspondent
seems to have
relied on
information
overheard in a
canteen
conversation.
The only
French media
that the
spokesman had
communicated
with that
morning was
the AFP
correspondent.
It
was not
possible, even
arrogant, for
Witcher to
claim to know
for a
certainty
which French
media the then
French Mission
spokesman
Stephane
Crauzat had
spoken with
that morning.
Worse
was AFP's
attempt to use
UNCA,
ostensibly a
organization
to defend
and expand the
rights of
journalists to
get
information at
the UN, to
censor an
entirely
accurate story
about an
incompetent
French
official being
dumped into a
high UN
position.
Here now is some audio
- as context.
Witcher
pursued
his, Ladsous'
or the French
Mission's
complaint for
weeks in
UNCA, using
useless and
scatological
judgment on
Inner City
Press'
accurate and
exclusive
story and
asking UNCA to
reprimand
Inner City
Press.
Witcher
of AFP, March
8, 2013,
Ladsous not
shown, thanks
UN Multimedia
Inner
City Press
asked to
attach a
dissent to the
UNCA executive
committee's
resulting
statement
about not
using
conversations
with
journalists as
source
material --
absurd, really
-- but was
told no,
that the UNCA
Executive
Committee or
some members
owned the
group's
e-mail list
serv.
By
June 2012,
according to
documents
obtained under
the US Freedom
of
Information
Law, Witcher's
AFP
expressed
support
for a bid
by Voice
of America to
get the UN to
“review” the
accreditation
of Inner
City Press --
entirely based
on things
written and
said, freedom
of
speech and of
the press be
damned.
At
that time
Inner City
Press was an
elected member
of the
Executive
Committee, but
due to the
group's
dissent into
censorship it
quit and
on December 7,
2012
co-founded the
Free UN
Coalition for
Access.
In
2013, UNCA now
increasingly
known as the
UN's
Censorship
Alliance
under “new”
president
Pamela Falk of
CBS has tried
to use the UN
Department of
Public
Information to
order Inner
City Press to
stop
accurate
reporting of
on the record
meetings.
The official
pursuing
that issue,
Stephane
Dujarric, is
the same one
who refused to
state
the UN's rules
of due
process, if
any -- even to
the New
York Civil
Liberties
Union --
or to say when
the Voice of
America
complaint, for
which
he thanked VOA,
would have
been shown to
Inner City
Press, if not
published and
exposed.
Ironically, at
the on the
record meeting
Dujarric
complained of,
Falk spoke to
Inner City
Press both
more
insultingly
and louder
than anything
Inner City
Press said to
AFP's Witcher
or the Reuters
correspondent.
DPI witnessed
that, but did
nothing. So
what are the
rules?
Meanwhile
UNCA
“leaders” have
used anonymous
social media
accounts to
try
to undermine
the new Free
UN Coalition
for Access,
have torn down
--
again Witcher
-- and
scrawled
insults on
FUNCA flyers
and most
recently
chirped about
lies and
distortion.
Significantly,
the "lies and
distortion"
that Witcher
hissed about
revolve again
around
Ladsous.
In
this context,
to convert a
one word
assessment --
“lapdog” --
into a
complaint to
UN Security is
beyond
frivolous.
Where is a
copy
of Witcher's
complaint?
What are the
rules? Watch
this site.
, 
