As
Egypt Discloses Guterres' Shoukry
Call, UN Silent, Restricting Press In Favor of
Sisi's Akhbar
al Yom
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS,
July 15 – As the
Egyptian
government
stepped up its
crackdown on
the media,
blocking at
least 40
news websites
including the
investigative
Mada Masr, the
Sisi-supporting
media stayed
quiet or
participated. UN Secretary
General Antonio was quiet, too, about his
call to Sisi's foreign minister Sameh
Shoukry. Read-outs are increasingly
not issued by the UN for the meetings
and calls of Guterres and his
deputy Amina J. Mohammed, for example the
latter's July
14 meeting with
the Clinton Foundation.
But Egypt's foreign
ministry announced
Guterres' call:
"Egypt’s Foreign
Minister Sameh
Shoukry received a
phone call Friday
from UN Secretary
General Antonio
Guterres ahead of
the latter’s visit
to Palestine and
Israel, a Ministry
of Foreign Affairs
statement read. Guterres
was keen to
communicate with
Shoukry ahead of his
Holy Land visit to
learn about Egypt’s
evaluation of the
situation in the
occupied Palestinian
territories, the
statement read." Meanwhile
under Guterres, the UN continues to restrict
the investigative Press which asks about his reform
plans, while trying to award Inner City
Press' long time office to a no-show,
no question essentially retired affiliated
of Sisi' state media
Akhbar al Yom. This must all
be reversed - it is
a travesty. Sisi
has made arrests for example of Mohamed
Walid
from Suez for posting online,
“I am neither pro-Mubarak nor do I belong to
the Muslim Brotherhood, I just want to live
as a human being...bread and freedom for all
people... down
with the military rule." On June 11 the Egyptian news
sites Albedaiah, run by independent
journalist Khaled al Balshy, Elbadil and
Bawabit Yanair were blocked. Access to the
global online publishing platform Medium
was also cut off on June 10. The Tor Project,
too, has been blocked. The
silence is deafening from Akhbar
al Yom to which UN Department
of Public Information, now
under Maher Nasser,
is ghoulishly giving the long
time UN work space of critical
Inner City Press. Swiss
Radio here.
Akhbar al Yom's "correspondent"
Sanaa Youssef has STILL not
asked a single question in a
year; she had not been seen for
long before that.
The UN is violating one of its
few stated rules, only in order
to retaliate against the
investigative Inner City Press,
which has recently exposed UN
Security cover ups, and
UNSG Guterres' withholding
of his own budget speech. Akhbar
al Yom's lack of questions, lack
of presence, is what DPI, and
also holdover UN Spokesman
Stephane Dujarric, seek to
reward while hindering
investigative journalism in the
UN. It is a scam that must end.
Here
is the beginning of a series.
When the International Press
Freedom Awards were given on November
22 at the Waldorf Astoria,
only three of the four awardees
could be present. Shawkan was
and is still imprisoned by the
al-Sisi government.
Three avenues east of the
Waldorf at the United Nations,
one of al-Sisi's state media
Akhbar al Yom is being awarded
the longtime work space of
investigative Inner City Press,
which outgoing Secretary General
Ban Ki-moon and his head of
Public Information Cristina
Gallach ousted and evicted
earlier this year.
For eleven months, Inner City
Press has only been allowed to
cover UN General Assembly events
when accompanied by a minder,
often unavailable or withdrawn
in the middle of reporting.
Here's
CNN's Jeff Zucker recounting
the meeting with PEOTUS Trump,
on Periscope
The UN Secretariat's ambivalent
stance to press freedom -- Ban
Ki-moon has for example not
taken any public question at UN
headquarters in more than a
month -- has been raised to the
IPFA's sponsor, the Committee to
Protect Journalists.
To the surprise of some, and
ironic now when compared to
CPJ's Trump statements, CPJ did
not challenge the UN Secretariat
as for example the DC-based Government
Accountability Project did. CPJ
said told Inner City Press that
it only works on cases of life
and death.
Now that CPJ has become ever
closed to - accredited in - the
United Nations, perhaps they
will do more. For now, beyond
Shakwan CPJ has given awards to
Can Dundar, Malini Subramaniam
and Oscar Martinez of the online
El Faro in El Salvador. It'd be
nice, too, to hear of Jean
Bigirimana in Burundi, for
example. Watch this site.
***
Feedback:
Editorial [at] innercitypress.com
Past
(and future?) UN Office: S-303, UN, NY 10017 USA
For now: Box 20047,
Dag Hammarskjold Station NY NY 10017
Reporter's mobile (and weekends):
718-716-3540
Other,
earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in
the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
Copyright
2006-2017 Inner City Press, Inc. To request reprint or other
permission, e-contact Editorial [at] innercitypress.com
for
|
,
