As Egypt Arrests 4 Journalists, Akhbar El Yom Absent, Ban Breaks Rules For Them

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 14 -- As the Egyptian government stepped up its crackdown on the media, expelling Liliane Daoud after arresting Yahia Galash, the Sisi-supporting media stayed quiet or participated.

The silence is deafening from Akhbar al Yom to which UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his communications chief Cristina Gallach are ghoulishly giving the long time UN work space of critical Inner City Press. Swiss Radio here.

Now from CPJ, which has done nothing on censorship in and by the UN and continuing targeted restrictions on the Press from covering the UN General Assembly, this:

Photojournalist Abdelrahman Taher was arrested November 11 while covering a march in Haram, in the Giza district that borders Cairo. Taher appeared before homeland security prosecutors the following day, and state prosecutors on November 13, according to local press freedom groups and news reports. State prosecutors charged Taher with belonging to a terrorist group, participating in an illegal protest, and obstructing traffic.

Taher was previously arrested in February 2015 and held in pre-trial detention for almost a year on charges of protesting, according to press freedom groups. He was released from custody in January 2016, with charges still pending. At the time of his latest arrest Taher was covering the Friday marches for the website, Al Sahm News, according to statements by the Journalists' Syndicate, the official union for the Egyptian press.

At least three other journalists were detained the same day. Hesham Mohamed, who works for the newspaper al-Watan, was detained for an hour after photographing marches in Haram after Friday prayers, according to local reports.

Ahmed Lotfy Sayyed, who works for the news website Masrawy was detained for an hour and a half after taking photographs of empty streets around Tahrir Square, he told the press freedom group Journalists Against Torture Observatory. 

Editor Karima Hassan was also detained while covering Tahrir, according to her outlet,Al-Masry Al-Youm."

What does Egyptian state media Akhbar el Yom say? And while CPJ veers from its stated focus on only the most extreme threats to free press, will its self-serving silence on the UN's lack of due process rules and protection for investigative, independent media continue? 

Outgoing, Press-UNfriendly UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is giving the long time office of Inner City Press to this Egyptian state media whose Sanaa Youssef rarely comes to the UN and never asks questions. The UN knows this - but this is what Ban Ki-moon and his Under Secretary General Cristina Gallach want to reward and encourage. It's worse - see this October 11 story,
including current UNCA boss Giampaolo Pioli engaging in hate speech, abetted by (some in) Ban's UN. This must change.

On November 8, as even from UN headquarters Inner City Press covered the IMF's austerity plans for Egypt, Akhbar al Yom's Sanaa Youssef was nowhere to be seen. This has remained true through November 14 and counting. This is a scam and must end.

Ban's UN is violating its own stated rules, for Sanaa Youssef a former president of UNCA, formally the UN Correspondents Association now the UN's Censorship Alliance. CPJ was informed of this, and of the ouster and eviction of the Press from the UN as it covered the UN corruption and nepotism story - including Ban Ki-moon giving his own son in law Siddharth Chatterjee the top UN job in Kenya without recusal - and has done... nothing.

The Journalists Against Torture Observatory (JATO)  issued its third quarterly report on violations committed against reporters and photojournalists in Egypt. Out of a total 106 attacks on journalists that were traced, JATO said it documented 100 cases through its fieldwork team. Out of those, 59 violations took place in July, 18 in August, and 23 in September.

Journalists face charges from the Egyptian state directly related to their profession such as publishing false news, incitement, libel, and defamation. They include recently detained Hamdy Al-Zaeem, Mohamed Hassan, and Osama El-Beshbeshy.

In Egypt fellow journalist Amr Badr, and human rights lawyer Malek Adly attended Al-Saqa's session with head of the Press Syndicate's Freedom Committee and lawyer Tarek Al-Awady.

  By contrast, among the silent even in New York is Akhbar El Yom, the publication to whose rarely-present correspondent Sanaa Youssef, who never asks the UN any questions, the UN of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is giving the long time shared office space of Inner City Press, from which Ban's Under Secretary General for Public Information Cristina Gallach  evicted Inner City Press on April 14 (see New York Times of May 14, here).

"The first half of 2016 was the worst in terms of freedom of expression, press, and media under the rule of President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, according to the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression’s (AFTE) quarterly report issued this week. AFTE referred to the incident in May when security forces stormed the Press Syndicate headquarters to arrest two journalists, as well as the trial of three syndicate leaders including the head of the syndicate Yehia Qalash."

Tellingly, it was bragged in Egypt that Ban Ki-moon did NOT call for any investigation of “the killing of hundreds during the  Rabaa Al-Adaweya sit-in dispersal. 'The United Nations in Egypt denies the issuance of any statements today or yesterday regarding Egyptian affairs by the UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, as was claimed in the media,' a statement read.

  To this has Ban Ki-moon's UN descended: denying that it ever called for an investigation, while evicting the investigative Press to give its office to Egypt state media.

Gamal Eid was set  to appear in a Cairo criminal court on August 15, along with investigative journalist / human rights activist Hossam Bahgat and others. CPJ, the Committee to "Protect Journalists," is rightly alerting on this - while remaining silent as the UN Secretariat evicts and restricts the investigative Press and gives its longtime work space to an Egyptian state media. Now CPJ and its director are slated continue their UN Censorship partnership on September 16, when they could instead appear in the UN Press Briefing Room, open (at least usually) to all. Hypocrisy?

Sanaa Youssef and Akhbar El Yom don't even arguably comply with the UN's stated rules: she never came to the UN three days a week in recent years, is only being used to censor Inner City Press. In the week of August 8, Ban's Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit appeared to service Akhbar al Youm's Sanaa Youssef, being given the Press office as a former head of the Ban-friendly UN Correspondents Association who has yet to ask any question of the UN.

Still no questions asked; in November not seen, nothing. A fraud.

From August 22 to September 6 she was entirely absent; upon brief return she asked no question, as Inner City Press asked about Yemen and Ban naming his own son in law to the top UN job in Kenya. On September 7 as Inner City Press pursued this and Ban's spokesman called it "ridiculous accusations" before walking off, she was nowhere to be seen.

On August 11, after Ban's spokesman claimed he was "bullied" in order to evade a Ban corruption question, a duo of MALU's supervisors cruised through the press floor. They are on notice that Akhbar Al Youm never comes, and of much else. Watch this site. On August 15, as Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesman about failures in Western Sahara, Yemen and Burundi, and corruption, Sanaa Youssef and Akbhar El Yom were nowhere to be found. That's now Ban likes it; that what he rewards while evicting the investigative Press.

On July 29 when Egypt abstained on a resolution to send UN Police to Burundi, Sanaa Youssef of Akhbar Al Youm  was nowhere to be seen; nor on August 12 when Egypt abtained on South Sudan, explanation of abstention here, published by Inner City Press. Meanwhile UNCA, her former presidency of which years ago appears to be the only basis for awarding her an office, put this out, forwarded by Inner City Press by a disgusted UNCA member:

“The UNCA Office will be closed for holiday from tomorrow, Thursday, July 28th to Tuesday, August 16th, 2016. All activities will be suspended during that period... Giampaolo Pioli, UNCA President”

  Does “activities being suspended” mean they won't during that time at least be trying to get investigative journalists thrown out of the UN? Former UNCA president Sanaa Youssef was never in the UN even before this holiday. We'll have more on this.

On June 28, as Inner City Press confined ot minder asked questions of the foreign ministers of Sweden, Kazakhstan and Italy, Akhbar Elyom's correspondent, a former UN Correspondents Association president, wasn't even in the building, having been awarded the space in contravention of the UN's supposed rules, simply to keep Inner City Press out of it. This was raised at the UN Human Rights Council on June 27, here.

Now, this: "The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the expulsion of TV host by authorities in Egypt late on Monday.... 'It is outrageous that Liliane Daoud was seized from her home and forced to leave the country without warning," Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour said from Washington. "Where independent journalists are concerned, Egypt has given up even the pretense to rule of law.'"

But CPJ and Mansour have not said anything about the UN's eviction of Inner City Press to put Akhbar Elyom in. We'll have more on this.

On May 31 Inner City Press - not Akhbar Elyom - asked Ban's spokesman Stephane Dujarric about the crackdown in Egypt. Video here, UN Transcript here:

Inner City Press: in Egypt.  I’m waiting for a statement there…  [inaudible]

Spokesman:  They apply across the board.  We, obviously, have seen the reports of new charges being brought against the Union of Journalists in Egypt.  We remain concerned at the situation.  We’re following it closely. 

 If Team Ban saw the crackdown and was so concerned, why did it issue no statement until asked by Inner City Press? Why is it giving Inner City Press' long time UN office to Egyptian state media Akhbar Elyom, whose rarely seen correspondent Sanaa Youssef, last seen in 2002, a former President of the UN Correspondents Association, asks no questions at all?  Perhaps the question answers itself. We'll have more on this.

 This while Ban Ki-moon speaks about "authoritarian impulses" and ostensibly for press freedom, while campaigning in South Korea. (See article in Korean here, robo-translation here.)

Meanwhile the Committee to Protect Journalists has said
“Authorities are pursuing Yehia Qallash, Khaled al-Balshy, and Gamal Abdel Rahim for trying to defend the Egyptian media against a thin-skinned and brutal security apparatus," CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour said. "We call on Egyptian prosecutors to drop these charges immediately and stop harassing journalists."

  But CPJ has yet to speak on Ban's UN evicting the investigative press, much less on Ban then giving Inner City Press' UN shared office to Egyptian state media Akhbar Elyom. We'll have more on this.

Amnesty International’s interim Deputy Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme Magdalena Mughrabi said:

"The arrest of key media figures at the Press Syndicate signals a dangerous escalation of the Egyptian authorities’ draconian clampdown on freedom of expression and demonstrates the extreme measures the authorities are prepared to take in order to tighten their iron grip on power.

“By prosecuting senior members of the Press Syndicate the authorities are clearly attempting to punish them for speaking out against the government and to send a strong message to intimidate all journalists into silence. The authorities must immediately order their release and drop the charges against them.” bo-translation here.)

   one.

"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, 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, 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 move to award Inner City Press' office to Egypt state media Al-Akhbar / Akhbar Elyoum.

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.” (Article in Arabic here.)

According to CPJ, Khallaf's EMS “trains and supports journalists who work online in Egypt. The syndicate operates independently from the state-recognized Egyptian Journalists Syndicate...
The local press freedom group Journalists Against Torture and the local Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTE) said Khallaf was also accused of 'taking pictures and displaying artistic works without a license,' among other allegations. A 1998 executive order states that individuals conducting audio and audiovisual work must have a license from the Ministry of Culture. According to AFTE, the accusation is in connection with Khallaf photographing the funeral of Hisham Barakat, Egypt's prosecutor general who was assassinated late last month."

There are many echoes of this in Ban's UN: as simply one example Ban's Under Secretary General for Public Information Cristina Gallach telling Inner City Press it takes photographs of things that "are not newsworthy." There are more, and more examples of Akbar Elyom.

Only when it questioned Ban's and its PR official Cristina Gallach's roles in the John Ashe, Ng Lap Seng and Francis Lorenzo UN bribery scandal did Gallach order Inner City Press ousted then evicted, and now try to give its office to an Egyptian media which rarely or never asked questions. Ban Ki-moon claimed “That is not my decision,” but that is not true.

  The New York Times on May 14 covered the story. But they did not in their long process report, because it happened at the end, that Ban Ki-moon and Gallach are moving to give Inner City Press' long time office to Egyptian state media, Al Akhbar / Akhbar El-Yom / Akher Saa, to a correspondent Sanaa Youssef who most even on the UN press floor have never seen.

Her "in" seems to be that she was a previous president of the UN Correspondents Association, now become the UN's Censorship Alliance. As one respected usual UN interlocutor put it, "it would be a hugely negative symbolic step for Egyptian state media to replace Inner City Press in the UN."

 A longtime UN correspondent who spotted her moving in on Inner City Press' office noted she had not been seen before; the name was confirmed by UN Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit, which refused to provide the waiting list or describe the rationale.

But this is Ban's and Gallach's UN (click here for a Spanish take on Gallach's tenure.) We are beginning to report this now because it has proven nearly impossible to reach Al Akhbar / Akhbar Al Yom - the telephone numbers listed online are disconnected, or private homes; the correspondent at UNCA address has been unresponsive. The absurdity of this has been directly raised to Ban Ki-moon, his Deputy and Chief of Staff with enough time to stop it. We'll see.

  For now from the NYT we note this quote: “It’s not exactly the same access,’’ Mr. Dujarric said, “but if he has an issue, there is a staff of media liaisons to help him resolve the problem and get where he needs to go.”

  This is false. As Inner City Press has raised to Ban Ki-moon, "even when begrudgingly accompanied by a staff member of your Spokesperson's office, UN Security refused to allow me through the turnstile onto the second floor of Conference Building. I have been told not to ask questions of diplomats, just after you came out of ECOSOC and even with a MALU minder / escort with me, a UN Security official stood directly in front of me, apparently so I couldn't even try to ask you a question. This is censorship."  We await response.

    UN Correspondents Association boss Giampaolo Pioli lied, but at least on the record. (He rented one of his Manhattan apartments to Palitha Kohona then granted Kohona's request, as Sri Lanka's Ambassador, to screen his government's war crimes denial film in the UN. Then Pioli told Inner City Press to take its story about it off the Internet or be thrown out of the UN, which Gallach and Ban did: UN Censorship Alliance.)

In any event, who is a rarely present boss of an ostensible Correspondents Association (morphing into the UN's Censorship Alliance) to lobby for the ouster of an investigative journalist so that his office can be handed to a never present former UNCA president - a representative of state owned media who never asks questions? This too has been raised and we await response.

  What's next? Is it acceptable for the UN to throw out a critical journalist writing four to eight stories a day, while leaving in people who write little, and ask nothing? Is Ban Ki-moon killing the UN? Watch this site.

The UN is now both corrupt -- a half a dozen indictments and counting, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon cavorting with the indicted and his team covering it up -- retaliatory and badly run.

Now the UN is moving to give away Inner City Press' long time office as retaliation for its seeking to cover the bribery and corruption scandal, including  trying to cover a meeting in the UN Press Briefing Room of the UN Correspondents Association (UNCA), a group which took money from the indicteds' company, Ban Ki-moon's “Communications” chief Cristina Gallach threw Inner City Press out of the UN on February 19.

So to whom does the UN seek to give Inner City Press' office away? A former UNCA President, who it seems has not asked any question, much less a critical question, in the UN Press Briefing Room or stakeout in quite some time.

Inner City Press has in the past defended correspondents when the UN sought late in their careers to move them along, and is treading lightly for now: perhaps this former UNCA President didn't know the history here.

(The current UNCA website doesn't even list its past Presidents, perhaps wisely: it seems to be a Year Zero operation.)

But what is the UN's rationale of giving away the office of a working, critical journalist to a former UNCA president who asks even fewer questions than the current UNCA president?

It's called retaliation, or some say, human shields. Who is responsible?

Audio hereBan, when asked, said “that is not my decision.” But he heard about the ouster and eviction in advance and ok-ed it.

On April 16, the acting chief of Gallach's “Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit Tal Mekel oversaw the eviction of Inner City Press' office, leaving five boxes of its files out on First Avenue. Video here.

Some in Ban's team indicated to Inner City Press its office would be left empty until its four month “purgatory” or punishment-for-reporting period was over.

That was a lie: on May 13, after Inner City Press asked more questions about Ban's engagements with John Ashe and Francis Lorenzo - president of South South News which paid UNCA and still has a UN office - Inner City Press was informed that its long time office is being given out -- apparently, to a former President of UNCA.

   When Inner City Press asked to see the supposed waiting list, this was refused by Mekel. It is apparently entirely up to Gallach - or UNCA - who is given UN office space, without which one cannot access the UN Conference Building's second floor, see below.

On May 13 as the UN Security Council began a meeting about Lebanon, the glass doors to enter the Council were locked. Apparenlty the UN can't afford one guard for a Security Council meeting, but won't provide information requested by the Press about Ban Ki-moon's endless and largely fruitless travel.

   Inner City Press, which covers the UN corruption scandal and was ousted then evicted by an official implicated in the scandal, Cristina Gallach -- see OIOS audit Paragraphs 37 to 40 and 20(b) -- with Ban Ki-moon's full knowledge, was unable to get to the Security Council stakeout. Its pass, cut by Gallach, won't open the turnstile at the other end of the stakeout. This week a guard there even refused to allow Inner City Press through to a stakeout with a staffer of the Spokesperson's office.

   Gallach, at least according to some paid to tweet for the UN, is in Washington. So Inner City Press undertook to document the restrictions and censorship. Another UN system spokesperson tried to undermine it, as did UN Security. They claimed everything is fine, even as Security Council Ambassadors asked them how can it be that the door is locked (and Press excluded). Some Security write-up began, sure to omit all of this. Watch this site - and see below.

While many try to insulate today's UN from the open corruption of the recent past of President of the General Assembly John Ashe, and of Francis Lorenzo who has pleaded guilty, there is continuity to this UN scandal. This includes a revival of the Ng Lap Seng's old "South South News" team, with El Salvador ex-Ambassador Carlos Garcia and others, even as those investigating this UN corruption are evicted and restricted, and those covering it up are rewarded.

   Inner City Press has repeatedly asked Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Stephane Dujarric about Ban's appearance at an event sponsored by the Francis Lorenzo registered group Global Governance for the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Q&A videos here and here.

Dujarric tried to answer about another group, then said Lorenzo's connection to the group isn't clear. Q&A video here.

   Well, now Inner City Press can report that the "Global Governance for the UN Sustainable Development Goals" event Ban attended was with indicted John Ashe, his wife Anilla Cherian's book launch. Video here.

 It featured speeches by Ban and by Francis Lorenzo, who in his speech named both GG-UNSDG and Global National Competitiveness Cooperation Organization for the UN, which sponsored the DPI-NGO conference last year at which Under Secretary General Cristina Gallach spoke. Q&A video here.

   How did this not show up in the UN's audit of l'affaire John Ashe and Ng Lap Seng? How did this book launch event get inserted into UNTV archives, run by Gallach's DPI? On the video, Ban and then Mrs. Ban are thanked by Ashe and then Anilla Cherian. The indictment details how over $1,000,000 was withdrawn from the PGA Accounts and transferred to the personal accounts of Ashe and of Anilla Cherian; no-show jobs are also described.

   Then there is the speech of Francis Lorenzo, how Anilla Cherian showed Ban the book even before Ashe. The UN has been trying to downplay or conceal Ban Ki-moon's contacts with Lorenzo, most recently saying it's unclear how Lorenzo is connected to a group that he, Lorenzo, register, and another one he founded. Those obfuscations cannot stand; separately, the retaliation is more and more clear. We'll have more on this.

As UN officials including Cristina Gallach, whose involvement in the scandal is detailed in the UN's own Office of Internal Oversight Services audit at Paragraphs 37 to 40 and 20(b) have moved to evict Inner City Press  from the UN premises (video here, Courthouse News article here) and restrict its access, Inner City Press has been made aware of a revival of the South South News model, in organizations which retains ties to indicted Ng Lap Seng.  

And Gallach's Department of Public Information continues partnering with these organizations, even as DPI falls apart on Gallach's watch. The last NGO Conference at the UN, sponsored by South Korea among others, had as a sponsor and speaker the "Global National Competitiveness Cooperation Organization for the UN," one of four Sponsors of indicted Francis Lorenzo's Global Governance for the UN SDGs.  Gallach even spoke at the event. 

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