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By Matthew Russell Lee, CJR Letter PFTracker

UN GATE, Jan 18 – While untransparent UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has reformed virtually nothing at the UN, other than asserting that he has absolute impunity to have a critical journalist roughed up and banned, now for 1393 days, each agency goes its own way. Whistleblowers within UNFPA, the Population Fund that supported and defended its own representative Diego Palacios' sexual harassment of contractor Prashanti Tiwari in India, now exclusively tell Inner City Press as follows:

For a follow-up article from the one you published a while back on the same subject, here: the ERP project was under the purview of the Deputy Executive Director (DED-Management) who came from UNRWA. She left UNFPA. The project is now under her replacement DED-Management.  

The current IT Chief (Italian) joined UNFPA also from UNRWA (before the previous DED-Management left UNFPA). He recently submitted his resignation to join another UN agency after spending millions on licenses, staff and consultancy fees but not delivering a single application yet.  [Another Guterres crony.]

    He hired an Italian company, where he used to work before, for the project at some point.  This same company was also contracted to implement a different project concurrently in UNFPA (not related to the ERP project). The project completely failed and UNFPA hired a different consultant/company to salvage the project.   He hired personnel (mostly Italians), who used to work in UNRWA, for the ERP project key positions. (The mention of UNRWA shows who these people move in groups from one UN entity to another).   The project is currently in a dire shape, to the point of no return, and the main responsible person is now leaving the organization without any accountability and consequence.   There are also other IT related projects that are managed by the people mentioned above with questionable decisions on procurement processes and selection of consultants. 

 Yes, the project was impacted by COVID-19 just like any other projects but the main problem for the failure of this project is mismanagement at the highest level in the organization and the utmost disregard of the taxpayers money.   Note: I hold a senior position in the organization and I am exhausted by the leadership mismanagement and the waste of taxpayers resources." Note that no one they let in the UN asks or write about this.Reference: Link to Inner City Press' previous exclusive on the subject, here 

Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric started complaining about Inner City Press' coverage of Guterres, including for example its entirely legal Periscope live-stream from the sidewalk across Sutton Place from the UN mansion Guterres lives in, which showed that on the day Guterres told the world to turn off all lights for an hour for the environment, his were all ablaze.

   Trying to defuse Guterres administration retaliation, Inner City Press had an intermediary, whom we'll leave unnamed, convey to Dujarric on June 20, 2018 that Inner City Press had voluntarily suspended all broadcasts from near the UN mansion, for a month. Dujarric, who only the day before had given a private press conference in the UN Press Briefing Room to a three person crew from Al Jazeera (which complained when Inner City Press on Periscope called it a sleazefest), told the intermediary it was too late, "I wish you had been involved a while ago." There's worse waiting, Dujarric told the intermediary on June 20, 2018. Worse waiting to happen: not allowed in.

  On June 22, 2018 UN Lieutenant Ronald E. Dobbins, with his own motive having been mentioned in Inner City Press' expose of irregularities in promotions in UN Security, arbitrarily singled out Inner City Press and made it leave the UN at 7:15 pm in the middle of an event, in the UN Media Alert, which featured a Guterres speech. Inner City Press live-streamed as it was pushed through the GA lobby, and did say “This is corrupt.” (That cannot be a violation of the UN's / UNCA's vague injunction to civility, in the midst of an impermissible ouster mid-coverage.)

   On June 25, 2018 Inner City Press wrote to Guterres, the chief of staff and Deputy SG and DPI's Alison Smale, saying that Lt Dobbins had improperly ousted it and had a personal animus. Inner City Press sent this and more to the UN's Office of Internal Oversight Service, recently further discredited in a UN Dispute Tribunal decision we're soon to write about.

  But Guterres offered no protection. In fact, his spokesman Dujarric and deputy Farhan Haq refused to answer any questions about the improper June 22, 2018 ouster, with Haq on July 3 saying it has been an appropriate enforcement of rules (which, in fact, allow non resident correspondents to stay in the UN past 7 pm if there is a meeting, and for an hour after the meeting).

  On July 3, 2018 as Inner City Press covered just such a meeting, of the Budget Committee, Dobbins and other approached and initiated violence. Inner City Press did not, as they perhaps hoped, respond with any physical resistance. But even saying “I am a journalist, this is corrupt” is now characterized an incivility to justify banning Inner City Press. Things got worse, indeed. And now we know Dujarric and Guterres are responsible, and both should leave the UN.

On July 30, 2018 Guterres' sleazy basis for roughing up and banning Inner City Press for 27 days at that point was reported in the Columbia Journalist Review.  Dujarric - who Inner City Press directed to the CJR reporter to - is quoted that " Lee Periscoped while shouting, 'Fuck you!' repeatedly. (Lee says he was complaining that Dujarrac had given the Al Jazeera crew a private interview, and excluded him.) 'He creates an atmosphere of incivility within our working environment,' Dujarrac says." 

This is a lie. (We noted that Dujarric himself has repeatedly dropped the F-bomb on Inner City Press, telling it it asked a "fucking stupid question" and, while throwing it out of the UN Press Briefing Room, saying "Matthew it's fucking Friday night, I'm so fucking tired, I want to go home, just leave," Vine here.)  Inner City Press on June 19, 2018 when Dujarric gave a "private briefing" to Al Jazeera about Nikki Haley and Mike Pompeo announcing the US pull out from the UN Human Right Council said in the hall that is was a "sleazefest." After closing the door of the focus booth it has been confined to work in for two years by Dujarric, and long after the Al Jazeera trio including James Bays and Whitney Hurst were done, said on Periscope, F-You. Periscope video - still online during this 27 day "investigation" - here. So Dujarric is a censor, justifying the beating up and banning of a journalist for something he broadcast in a soundproof booth to his audience.

 But Dujarric (and it seems Guterres' and Smale's) roles go beyond justifying the roughing up of the Press. It seems clear that the green light was given. Consider this, formally submitted to a UN Special Rapporteur: Dujarric told CJR that on June 19 Inner City Press supposedly repeatedly said f*ck you to an Al Jazeera crew (as noted, they must have heard and seized on it only by listening to my Periscope stream archive afterward) --

1) on June 20, 2018Inner City Press was told by UN Media Accreditation there were concerns about “intimidating” Al Jazeera's three-person crew with its phone;

2) troublingly, on June 20, 2018 Dujarric told a person trying to be Inner City Press' intermediary that things were “going to get worse” for me. Inner City Press reported once, on July 20, 2018 about that, here;

3) on June 22, 2018 UN Security Lieutenant Ronald Dobbins and four others who refused to give their names stopped me at 7:15 pm while Inner City Press was covering a speech by SG Antonio Guterres and pushed it out of the building, leaving other non resident correspondents inside.

Inner City Press now surmises that Dujarric, or higher, gave an order after June 19 to (physically) target it.

4) on June 25, 2018 Inner City Press wrote to Guterres, his chief of staff, his deputy Amina J Mohammed and USG Alison Smale informing them Lt Dobbins, with animus, had pushed it out of the UN during an SG speech, and implicitly requesting the vaunted 'protection of journalist.' They did... nothing.

5) on July 3, 2018 Dobbins and other officer got even more violent, grabbing Inner City Press' reporter's arm and twisting it, tearing his shirt and damaging his computer while Inner City Press covered the UN Budget Committee meeting in the same way it has for ten years, including the last two as a non resident correspondent (downgraded in connection with Inner City Press' coverage of the Ng Lap Seng / John Ashe UN bribery scandal in which Ng is now in jail).

On July 5, 2018 when Inner City Press came to work - after reporting the assault to the NYPD - it was told it was banned from entering the UN and has been since.

Inner City Press now believes that Dujarric / Guterres  put out orders to have its reporter physically targeted, despite the rules saying he can stay after 7 pm if there is a meeting (true both times). Maybe they hoped Inner City Press would react in a way they could easily use to ban it. All he did was say loudly “I am a journalist” - but they still banned Inner City Press.

But they took a chance the officers would more seriously injure the Inner City Press reporter. It was beyond censorship, beyond reckless - it must be reported and acted on. (It was reported, on July 31, here: the "UN spokesman had vowed to make things worse for him after watching a video Lee made. 'I get roughed up, banned, no due process, no end in sight.'") Inner City Press at noon on July 31 asked Guterres and his spokespeople and Deputy and Smale (and has asked the Rapporteur to obtain), "Given Spokesman Stephane Dujarric's quotes to Columbia Journalism Review, and the moribund nature of the supposed “investigation,” please describe all instructions given to UN Security, Lt Dobbins and others, after June 19 regarding Inner City Press, and also state whether any personnel of Al Jazeera or [  ] have been interviewed for the investigation" - watch this site.

   Amazingly, the UN is pointing to a vague language it negotiated with its UN Correspondents Association which Inner City Press quit after finding the organization took money from now convicted UN bribery Ng Lap Seng and had a president who rented one of his apartments to a Sri Lanka war crimes suspect: "Where unexpected circumstances arise, the approach will be to avoid confrontation, maintain civility and find the fastest, safest and most secure acceptable solution. Those Correspondents who violate the ground rules governing access, including the abovementioned standards of ethical behavior may have their accreditation withdrawn or suspended by the United Nations."

  But it was UN Security, Lt Dobbins on July 3 with another still unnamed, who initiated violent confrontation, grabbing Inner City Press' reporter's arm and twisting it, and tearing his shirt, as he sat typing up interview notes outside a Budget Committee meeting he had every right to cover, under the rules. Guterres' UN has become a Kafkaesque place of censorship where guards he had already been warned (in writing on June 25) were targeting the Press can physically assault a reporter whose saying "I am a journalist!" can then be used as a lack of civility or unacceptable comportment to ban the journalist. This is corrupt.

On July 18, 2018 Guterres' deputy spokesman Farhan Haq was asked by two journalists about the status of what he and lead spokesman Stephane Dujarric called the investigation of the "incidents" of July 3, and apparently not now of June 22. Video here, from the UN transcript: a follow-up to one that’s been asked here last week and the week before, and that’s a report on the current status of the investigation into the events on 3 July leading, ultimately, to the ouster, at least temporary ouster, of Inner City Press.  And did the Secretary-General receive any communications from any non-governmental organization (NGO) on… on this subject?  For example, I think it’s called the Global Accountability Project or something like that.

Deputy Spokesman:  The UN has received a letter from the Government Accountability Project, and I believe we’ll be responding to them in due course.

Question:  And… and the status of the investigation?  Could you…

Deputy Spokesman:  It’s ongoing... 2d Questioner: regarding Inner City Press, you said it’s ongoing.  Is there an idea of when… is there a date… any idea of when it’s actually going to come out and have a result?

Deputy Spokesman:  No.  I mean, once we’ve come to a decision, he’ll be informed of the decision." On what - the excessive use of force by UN Security? This is Kafkaesque - or now, Guterresian....

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