At
UN, Formal Request Made To End
Restrictions on Press, Is
Officer in Charge, In Charge?
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS,
April 5 – The UN,
demonstrating hypocrisy on
both press freedom and transparency,
evicted Inner City Press as it
covered UN corruption in the Ng
Lap Seng bribery case and restricts
it even now, after the
evicting official is gone. (A
formal request for reversal,
below, as been filed). After
the UN's head of
Communications Cristina
Gallach was given a strange
farewell toast on March 30,
the UN told Inner City Press
that the "position will
be filled by
an
Officer-in-Charge...
while the
process to
find a new
Under-Secretary-General
for Public
Information
continues."
On
April 3, Inner
City Press
wrote to this
Officer in
Charge, who
copied the
request to
several others
to be named:
"Four
hundred and five days ago, without
any hearing or opportunity to be
heard, I was ordered out of the
United Nations for having sought
to covering a meeting in the UN
Press Briefing Room that was
nowhere listed as closed to some
journalists and not others. Inner
City Press, still without any
hearing and no appeal since, was
then evicted from its shared
office S-303 which has sat largely
unused since. I have been forced,
for more than a year, to only
enter through the metal detectors
at the Visitors Entrance, and my
pass has not worked on the second
floor turnstile, precluding me
from covering events on the second
floor as other correspondents
could. There are other
restrictions and double standards,
hindering reporting, of which DPI
has been made aware.
Yesterday
was the last day atop DPI for the
official who without speaking to
me once signed the February 19,
2016 letter, and for the April
2016 eviction. The Deputy
Spokesperson told
me yesterday, in a noon briefing where
I asked six questions (earlier the
week there was a noon briefing
where from the entire rest of the
accredited press corps there were
only three questioners), I was
told that you are the Officer in
Charge of DPI.
In that capacity, this is a formal
request that Inner City Press be
restored to the office it was
ousted from without due process...
and that I be restored to Resident
Correspondent accreditation
immediately... I also incorporate
this link to the Special
Rapporteurs for Freedom of
Expression and Human Rights
Defenders letter:
and, again, this petition."
Days later, no ruling,
attempted jokes while Inner City Press worked to
write up the Syria UN Security Council meeting
from a bench in the UN lobby. We'll have more on
this.
On
March 28, forwarded not sent
to Inner City Press, this:
"UNCA will host a farewell
reception in honor of
Under-Secretary-General of
DPI, Cristina Gallach, on
Thursday, March 30th at 5:30
pm in the UNCA room (3rd
floor, UN Secretariat
Building, room 310). Food and
wine will be served. Please
join us for a farewell toast!"
Toasting what? Allowing into
the UN with no due diligence
the Macau-based businessman Ng
Lap Seng, as detailed in the
UN's own audit
at Paragraphs 37-40 and 20b?
Evicting the Press without
any hearing or appeal?
The decline in media access?
On March 29, Inner City Press
asked among other things,
"yesterday your Office
replied, regarding the USG of
DPI, 'We will announce
arrivals and departures as
they occur.' Now that your
partner has arranged a
farewell for this USG for
March 30, what is the
rationale for your Office
refusing to confirm her
departure and the status of
recruiting a replacement?" The
UN spokesman replied,
"Regarding
Under-Secretary-General
Cristina Gallach, her position
will be filled by an
Officer-in-Charge upon her
departure while the process to
find a new
Under-Secretary-General for
Public Information continues."
We'll have more on this.
In early
2016, covering the UN
corruption scandals which have
resulted in two sets of
indictments for bribery
involving the UN, Inner City
Press was ordered to leave the
UN Press Briefing Room by then
Secretary General Ban
Ki-moon's spokesman Stephane
Dujarric.
Other
correspondents were allowed to
stay in the briefing room,
which Dujarric had "lent"
them. But he insisted that
Inner City Press leave. Video
here.
Inner City
Press asked to see any
paperwork that the event was
closed; none was provided.
Inner City Press stated that
if a single UN Security
official asked it to leave, it
would. Finally one guard came
and said Dujarric wanted it to
leave.
Inner City
Press immediately left,
uploaded the already
live-streamed Periscope video,
and continued digging into the
corruption that's resulted in
the indictment for bribery and
money laundering of Ban
Ki-moon's brother Ban Ki Sang
and nephew Dennis Bahn.
But three
weeks afterward, without a
single conversation or
opportunity to be heard, Ban's
Under Secretary General for
Public Information Cristina
Gallach ordered Inner City
Press to leave the UN, after
ten years, on two hours
notice. Order
here.
This
was enforced, as Inner City
Press worked on its laptop at
the UN Security Council
stakeout, by eight UN Security
officers led by Deputy Chief
McNulty, who tore Inner City
Press accreditation badge off
its chest and said, "Now you
are a trespasser." Audio
here.
Inner City
Press was marched down the
escalator and around the UN
traffic circle, without even
its coat which was up in its
longtime office. It was pushed
out of the gate and its
laptop, in a bag, was thrown
on the sidewalk and damaged.
The next
work day when Inner City Press
arranged for a fellow
journalist to sign it in as a
guest so it could cover the
Security Council, UN Security
official Matthew Sullivan said
it was Banned from UN premises
worldwide. Audio
here.
After three days covering the
UN from the park in front in
the sleet, and articles like
this one, Inner City Press
re-entered with a
"non-resident correspondents"
pass - to which it is still,
more than eleven months later,
confined.
The
then-US Mission under Samantha
Power and Isobel Coleman, even
petitioned
by the DC-based Government
Accountability Project, did
nothing. Indirectly, a offer
was made of an upgraded pass
if Inner City Press would
agree to a gag order, to which
it would not and will not
agree.
There has
been no UN opportunity for
appeal or reinstatement. After
having five boxes of Inner
City Press' investigative
files thrown
on the sidewalk in April,
Gallach is giving
its office to an
Egyptian state media Akhbar al
Yom which rarely comes in, a
correspondent Sanaa Youssef
who had yet to ask a single
question.
Her only claim is
that she was once, decades
ago, a president of the United
Nations Correspondents
Association, the group to
which Duajrric "lent" the UN
Press Briefing Room, without
notice or written record, on
January 29, 2016.
Even as the
scope of Ban Ki-moon's
corruption is being exposed
upon his return to South
Korea, here,
his successor Antonio Guterres
has yet to reverse this year
of censorship and no due
process. On January 6 Dujarric
and Gallach led him on a tour
of... the UN Correspondents
Association, which now wants
him again in their clubhouse.
(More on this to follow.)
On January
27 as Inner City Press moved
to cover Guterres at the UN's
Holocaust event, it was
targeted by UN Security and
told it could not proceed
without a minder, who did not
appear for over 15 minutes.
All of this
must change. This is a scam,
and censorship: the UN's
Censorship Alliance. We will
have more on this.
***
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