UNITED
NATIONS, March
18 -- Notable
about the UN's
raid on Inner
City Press'
office on
Monday, to
search through
papers and
take
photographs,
and
allow the UN
Correspondents
Association
president
Pamela Falk of
CBS
to take
photographs as
well, is that
nothing like
this took
place
under Ban
Ki-moon's
predecessor as
Secretary
General Kofi
Annan, or
under former
head of the
Department of
Public
Information
Kiyotaka
Akasaka.
Starting
with
DPI, Inner
City Press
since December
7, 2012 has
been
petitioning
and even
meeting with
the top
officials at
DPI on behalf
of the new Free UN Coalition for Access, seeking
reforms
including
due process
rules for
journalists.
Who
knew that
privacy rights
would
also be
necessary --
that DPI would
order a search
of the Press'
office when it
could easily
have contacted
Inner City
Press and
requested
access and any
changes?
Instead,
DPI
has sided with
UNCA to the
extent of DPI
official
Stephane
Dujarric
falsely
charging
Inner City
Press with
some violation
for
having quoted
UNCA's Pam
Falk and First
Vice President
Louis
Charbonneau of
Reuters at a
meeting where
Inner City
Press said
loudly, “You
are on the
record” and
Falk said
“he's going to
report this.”
Audio
here.
Inner
City Press
raised this
false charge
directly to
DPI chief
Peter
Launsky-Tieffenthal
on the morning
of March 15,
as reported on
this
site.
Amazingly, it
was Dujarric
who responded,
saying “Peter
asked
me to
respond.”
As
noted by Inner
City Press on March
16 as an
analogy, this
is like a
Corrections
Commissioner
sending a
complaint
against a
warden who
lets a gang
shank an
inmate -- back
to the very
same warden.
Who
knew, two days
after this
article,
that the
response would
be a raid
on Inner City
Press' office?
Inner City
Press
expressed its
outrage
to the DPI
official on
the scene, and
to UN Security
(one of whom
threatened
that Inner
City Press
would lose its
badge to enter
the
UN). And,
hours later,
still nothing
from the top
of DPI.
Would
the raid be
used to throw
Inner City
Press out? Why
was it done?
What
protections if
any are in
place? What is
the role of
Ban Ki-moon?
What is
happened to
the UN? Watch
this site.
, 
