As
Egypt Blocks
Reporters Without Borders, UN
Favors Akhbar al Yom Over Inner
City Press
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS,
August 19 – As the
Egyptian
government
stepped up its
crackdown on
the media,
blocking websites
including now
Reporters Without
Borders /
Reporteurs
Sans
Frontieres,
the
Sisi-supporting
media stayed
quiet or
participated. UN Secretary
General Antonio was quiet, too. Guterres
refused Innter City Press' August 16
question about the Ng Lap Seng UN bribery
verdict. 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 scam
correspondent Sanaa Youssef
has not even come in for Egypt's UN Security
Council presidency. Acting DPI
chief Maher Nasser said
he'd look into it but
hasn't; MALU knows all about
it but does nothing. 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.
***
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