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By Matthew Russell Lee, Video here, Vine here

UN GATE, August 30 -- After its  reporting on the United Nations as a resident correspondent for a decade, exposing war crimes and UN scandals from Sri Lanka to Yemen to Cameroon, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres had Inner City Press roughly ousted and banned from the UN since 3 July 2018.

  On 24 August 2019 Inner City Press applied to  Guterres and his new Communications and media accreditation chief Melissa Fleming to be admitted like hundreds of others to cover the upcoming UN General Assembly. After receiving from Guterres' Security chief Gilles Michaud an ill-informed response passing the buck to the Department now run by Fleming, past 4 pm on Friday, August 30 the UN issued a denial of accreditation with no reasoning other than that accreditation had previously been revoked:

"From: malu <malu@un.org>
Date: Fri, Aug 30, 2019 at 4:23 PM
Subject: U.N. eAccreditation request for Matthew Lee Ref # M5413398 has been declined
To: Inner City Press:

Greetings Matthew Lee from Inner City Press,  Your media accreditation request, with reference no: M5413398, has been declined for the following reason: Media accreditation was withdrawn on 17 August 2018."

  This is Kafka-esque, and corrupt. We will have more, much more, on this. For now, here was from the August 24, 2019 application:

"I am writing to you a month before the UN General Assembly high level week as a journalist who after covering the United Nations for Inner City Press for ten years was roughed up and thrown out of the UN as I covered its Fifth (Budget) Committee on 3 July 2018 and have been denied all access since. There was no due process, no right to appeal, nothing. The Department's and MALU's lack of any content neutral accreditation rules, rule process including appeal rights for jouranlists, must also be addressed.  I should now be granted accreditation like hundreds of correspondents who publish far fewer stories about the UN and international affairs than I do. I ask for your immediate response.     I have a right to cover the UN, the Security Council, ECOSOC and General Assembly including next month's High Level week. For your information despite now ending USG Smale having assured the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression that during my exclusion my written questions would be answered, the questions have not been."

 Receipt was confirmed from many, including "From: malu Date: Sat, Aug 24, 2019 at 7:28 PM Subject: Your U.N. eAccreditation Request has been RECEIVED To: Inner City Press Greetings Matthew Lee,  This is to confirm the United Nations Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit (M.A.L.U.) at New York Headquarters has received your request for accreditation. Please be assured every effort will be made to review the request as soon as possible. Upon processing, a notification email (to the email address registered with the request) will provide the status update, to confirm an approval or rejection, and any additional information which may be required." Watch this site - we will report in detail going forward.

   UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres says he has a "zero tolerance" policy for sexual abuse, exploitation and harassment, and for retaliation.
But it has become clear what Guterres has a zero tolerance for is criticism, or even questions. Guterres had Inner City Press roughed up twice a year ago and banned since; now he and his spokespeople refuse to answer written questions about UN peacekeepers' child rapes, see below.

  A senior UN official who, like many lower down in the UN appreciates Inner City Press' accountability reporting about an Organization killing itself with corruption and arrogance, tried to raise the issue but wrote back: " I am sorry to hear that you are still banned from the UN. I was with the SG for a short meeting , we barely managed to cover some of the most important topics and he rushed to another meeting. But I enquired around and I was told that even my continuous efforts would not help. There are apparently also some others that are unhappy with your reporting."

  Who might those "some others" be? Watch this site.

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