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By Matthew Russell Lee, CJR Scope PFTracker

UNITED NATIONS GATE, March 24 – How corrupt and vindictive is UN Security? Beyond the UN Security officials who, having been exposed by Inner City Press for bringing for profit events into the UN contrary to the stated ruled that are increasingly violated in the lawless administration of UNSG Antonio Guterres, now enforce Guterres' ban on Inner City Press, there other vindictive guards, echoing the film The Bad Lieutenant. On March 22, one of Guterres' guards used NYPD to have Inner City Press restrained on the sidewalk of 96th Street in Manhattan, here, 9 minute video here, as Inner City Press continues its inquiry into Guterres' undisclosed links to UN briber CEFC China Energy. Inner City Press before getting targeted and roughed up by UN Security Lieutenant Ronald E. Dobbins on whom it had previously reported irregularities in promotions also wrote about other irregularities in UN Security. Today we turn again to the case of UN Security official Gert Schmidt, who has sent no fewer than 700 tweets to Antonio Guterres and his spokesman Stephane Dujarric lobbying for and applauding the roughed up and banning of Inner City Press, see here. Called out as a troll, Schmidt has launched troll-like defenses of Guterres, Dujarric and even now his deputy Farhan Haq. These are their people. Schmidt would like to outlaw Inner City Press' critique of "the SG just because he was discredited and banned from the UN for the simple reason that he did not follow lawful instructions from UN Security. Just listen to ICP rants on the video clips posted since." Case closed. While some others have remarked on the absurdity of the Gert Schmidt  account - and even wondered who is behind it - we had not written about it, as Gert has a total of three followers, akin to some of the pro-Paul Biya Cameroon accounts after Biya's lobbyists met with Guterres on 11 July 2018 and hired public relations firms. But among Gert's three followers is another UN Security official, at least in 2015: David John Schot. And Gert Schmidt, former or current UN Security official, has taken to claiming for example to the Committee to Protect Journalists' deputy Robert Mahoney that Dobbins and his unnamed partner's unilateral use of force on Inner City Press was justified: "You were not wronged. You failed to obey a lawful order by UN Security." No, Dobbins and his partner grabbed Inner City Press, twisting arm, tearing shirt and damaging laptop before even giving any order, which in any event wasn't lawyer since Inner City Press had and has a right to cover meeting such as that of the Budget Committee. And on the basis of Inner City Press being roughed up BY UN Security, UN Security's Gert Schmit said in the middle of the General Assembly week that Antonio "The Censor" Guterres made Press-less for the first time in a decade, "Banned for life means banned for life. Period" - contrary to the misleading claims of Spokesman Dujarric, that "no one here has called it lifetime ban" (then what is it?). Before that, Gert defended Guterres' imposition of "minders" in Inner City Press, here. Gert / Guterres said, "Stop whining ICP. You are where you should be, in the street gutter on 1st Ave." Tellingly, the Gert account defends Guterres' ill-fated Global Service Delivery Mechanism proposal, to try to pass through the Budget Committee chaired by Cameroon Guterres went silent on and helped cover up Cameroon's slaughter of Anglophones. The Gert account, defending lack of transparency, says "SG can meet with whomever he wishes" - including genocide indictee Omar al Bashir, without disclosure. Inner City Press asked Gert, what's up? He referred back to what he called unfair coverage, presumbly this: "The head of security for the UN in New York, Bruno Henn, traveling overseas for a conference in the Middle East, has named as his interim replacement his own administrative officer, Gert Schmidt, who sources tell Inner City Press is not qualified to lead the protection of UN Headquarters. This despite the two reports on the bombing of UN premises in Algiers in December criticizing the UN for putting unqualified people in charge of security.

   The sources link Henn's transfer of responsibility to a "bureaucrat" who until recently worked not in security or law enforcement but as a Cashier in the UN Pension Fund to Henn's strategy to surmount questions recently raised about his resume and his personal use of a UN security vehicle to drive to and from his New Jersey home. Not unlike a rogue stock broker who can only hand over his trading positions to a trusted underling in order to not be found out, they say, Henn has put Schmidt in command. But does this serve the cause of UN security?"

   Gert didn't specify which part he objected to. Did he not work for the Pension Fund? Was it this further coverage on Henn? "we offer this interim update on UN Security. The Department held a town hall meeting on October 22 in the Dag Hammarskjold Library auditorium.

  While the Press was excluded from the meeting, subsequent interviews revealed that D-2 level director Moh'D Ali Bani Faris did most of the talking -- "incomprehensible," more than one officer pegged him -- while his D-1 association Bruno Henn said almost nothing. An officer remarked that in the audience was one Jeffrey Armstrong, formerly of the US Pentagon and now reportedly held down by Henn and friends in the name of bureaucratic rules for promotion that Henn himself did not follow. There is also a brewing issue of Henn's personal use of a UN car, on which the Spokesperson's office told Inner City Press:

"Hi Matthew -- I heard you'd been asking about whether Bruno Henn had recently returned the keys of a UN vehicle that had belonged to the SG's security detail; I just wanted you to know that the car that Mr Henn has been using is one that he was authorised to use, and that he routinely returns the keys to that vehicle when it is not in use by him. In other words, there's nothing unusual about him returning the keys last week, as he does at other times so that the vehicle can be serviced or employed for other uses."

  But Inner City Press' sources say that an inquiry has begun into the value of Henn's personal use of the car, whether rules were complied with and whether a waiver previously granted by the UN Department of Management was obtained on false pretenses. To these questions, too, we shall return." And we shall - just without the UN's side of things. For the record, Inner City Press before it was ousted from the briefing room by Dujarric, Alison Smale and Guterres did ask about Schmidt: Inner City Press asked at the October 28 noon briefing if there was any denial of Gert Schmidt being put in charge of security, or any read-out on the Chief Executives Board meeting of October 25 including on Security, but none has yet been provided." That remains the case, and Dujarric despite Smale's "commitment" to answers made to UNSR David Kaye are barely answering any of Inner City Press' questions. But we will not stop reporting - it just won't include the UN's side (which it refuses to provide anyway). So despite Gert's schadenfreude, he and those in his position - should direct their complaints to Guterres and Dujarric - which Gert is, in his way, over 600 times. 

UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric, the lead spokesperson for Secretary General Antonio Guterres who has put Inner City Press on his UNdisclosed banned from the UN list along with "political activists," here, blocks Inner City Press on Twitter. And on 24 October 2018 one of Dujarric's friendly interlocutors, UN Security Inspector Matthew Sullivan - who has called Dujarric a great man while also calling US Senator Elizabeth Warren "Jokeahontas," here, blocked Inner City Press from an event on Burundi and Cameroon, video here. Is the UN faux progressive, nasty nativist, or both / neither, only united in abusing its power? Sullivan used UN conference rooms for sneaker related for profit events, which Dujarric and his deputy defended. Sullivan, in turn, on 25 June 2018, three days after his underling Lt Ronald E Dobbins carried out Dujarric's and Al Jazeera's threat and had Inner City Press physically outsted, wrote "Stephane is a great man." We'll have more on this. 

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