| After
UNSC Prez Tunisia Banned Cameroon Qs For
Guterres Review of Its Repression
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon Periscope
BBC
- Guardian
UK - Honduras
- CJR -
PFT
UN GATE, Jan
5 – In the United
Nations from which SG Antonio
Guterres has banned Inner City
Press 916 days for asking
about his complicity in the
killing of civilians in
Cameroon, poisoning them in
Haiti with cholera and COVID
in South Sudan, and their mass
imprisonment by China in
Xinjiang, on January 4 Inner
City Press wrote to the
Mission of Tunisia, as
incoming UN Security Council
president, with questions
including about Ethiopia,
Western Sahara, Haiti, Yemen
and Cameroon.
Inner City
Press specifically asked to be
provided the WebEx codes to be
able to ask its questions. No
answer.
But three
hours later when Tunisia's
Ambassador Tarek Labed took
questions, his spokesperson
took them in groups of four --
without protest from the
increasingly pathetic UNCA UN
press corpse -- allowing Labed
to evade even the questions
that were asked.
No one allowed in
asked about Cameroon, just the
way Guterres wants it. The
answer is clearly no. This is
shameful - as, so far, is the
Tunisian presidency of the UN
Security Council.
Perhaps it is no
surprise. The country just
extended its "state of
emergency," justifying
repression. President
Kais Saied “decided on the
six-month extension of the
nationwide state of emergency,
from December 26, 2020, to
June 23, 2021,” a statement
said. The measure grants
exceptional powers to the
country's security
forces. It allows
measures to "ensure the
control of the press" - and,
in the UN, banning of Press.
Earlier, "as the Tunisian
parliament considers a
controversial police
protection bill, protests
erupted in the city of Bardo
to oppose it. Human rights
groups and a youth-led citizen
movement dubbed Hasebhom
(translated as “hold them to
account”) rallied outside the
parliament building against
the bill, which, if adopted,
would grant security forces
immunity from prosecution for
their use of unnecessary
lethal force. The
Tunisia parliament’s decision
to hold a plenary session to
discuss the bill —weeks before
the 10th anniversary of the
revolution that toppled the
Ben Ali dictatorship— was met
with criticism from human
rights groups and activists
who have been opposing the
bill since it was first
submitted to the parliament in
2015. As activists
mobilized against the bill,
police targeted them on- and
offline. These attacks on
freedom of demonstration and
speech are alarming and
confirm the concerns of human
rights organizations that
serious rights violations and
persisting gaps in legal
protections of rights threaten
Tunisia’s strides."
At Inner City
Press we ask, What strides?
But will
the five incoming UNSC members
- India, Ireland, Mexico,
Kenya and Norway - do their
jobs of openness to the Press
and public? We will be asking.
For now
Inner City Press, which will
report all month about the
UNSC with or seemingly without
any Tunisia or Labed access,
posted the Program of Work here
and notes for example "Wester
Africa" - that would / should
include Cameroon - on January
11, Yemen on January 14,
League of Arab States on
January 18, Syria on January
20, Colombia on January 21,
and January 26 on the Middle
East. Labed said two meetings
will be in person - this as
Guterres violated COVID
quarantine rules. Today's UN
is corrupt.
Inner City Press streamed some
of the Press-less presser, here.
Among those "given the
floor" by Tunisia, while
banning Inner City Press, were
state media from Pakistan, a
retiree of a decade, and
others.
When Guterres'
spokes- / hatchetman Stephane
Dujarric holds his noon
briefings this month while
refusing all questions from
Inner City Press despite an on
camera promise.
And Tunisia and Labed? We'll
report.
Watch this site.
***
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