At
UN Press Restricted From
Covering Guterres' Lusophone
Garden Party, Kids Climb Slavery
Memorial
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS,
May 5 – The UN Media Alert for
May 5 listed a “Portuguese
Language Day Celebration;”
when Inner City Press asked
the spokesman for UN Secretary
General Antonio Guterres it
was told there would be remarks
by Guterres, who is
increasingly rarely in New
York. Events in the UN Media
Alert are open to all
journalists - but in today's
UN, rules mean little.
On May 5 UN
Security stopped Inner City
Press saying, No, I know who
you are. Another UN Security
Officer asked, Why don't you
like the UN? Haiti cholera
impunity came to mind,
or UN Security Deputy Chief
McNulty throwing Inner City
Press' laptop on the sidewalk
when it was evicted (audio here)
for covering an event in the
UN Press Briefing Rule - also
ostensibly open to all
journalists.
On My 5
while UN Security was focused
on making it impossible for
Inner City Press to do its
job, they allowed children,
presumably Lusophone, to play
on the UN's slavery memorial,
which its Department of Public
Information took money for
from now convicted UN briber
Ng Lap Seng, even according to
the UN's own audit.
The UN was turned into Antonio
Guterres' Lusophone garden
party. Any number of state
media, like rarely present
Egyptian Akhbar al Yom to
which DPI under Alison Smale
continues to assign Inner City
Press' long time work space
to, could enter and cover the
event without no interaction
much less blocking by UN
Security. (Smale retweeted
Guterres' Portuguese language
self celebration, here
- but could not or would not
assure that the Press could
cover the event, in the Media
Alert, and has not in eight
months responded to 5000 signature
petitions
and request for reinstatement
and rules).
The May 5
targeting of Inner City Press
-- "I know who you are" -- is
allowed by downgrading and
keeping down Inner City Press
as "non resident
correspondent," while giving
full resident correspondent
status to no-show state media
like Akhbar al Yom's Sanaa
Youssef who has not asked the
UN a question in more than a
decade. Inner City Press, by
contrast, is required to have
a minder. But the UN is a
place now of targeted
censorship - the cancellation
by the UN Alliance of
Civilizations is just the most
recent example. We'll have
more on this.
***
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