UN
Spox Dujarric Spins Censorship
For Guterres While Former Boss
Clark Questions It Solution Is
Simple
By Matthew
Russell Lee, CJR Q&A, NY
Post
UNITED NATIONS
GATE, NOVEMBER 19 -- As
Inner City Press moved forward
with its investigative
reporting about the UN
including its Secretary
General Antonio Guterres, his
spokesman Stephane Dujarric on
20 June 2018 said that “things
will soon be getting worse”
for Inner City Press'
reporter. Inner City Press has
now been banned from the UN
for 138 days and Dujarric is
providing his and his boss'
pretext, as purported
background, to some of those
asking questions, at least if
they come from Europe, see
below. But on November 19
Dujarric's former boss at UNDP
Helen Clark, answering Inner
City Press' question across
First Avenue from the UN,
pointedly called out "the
exclusion of journalists
across the road." Vine;
longer version here.
One might think this would be
jarring for Dujarric. One
might question if ANY of the
other candidates for Secretary
General would have been the
censor Guterres has been for
138 days, enabled by Dujarric.
Inner City Press at noon on
November 19, before
questioning Clark, asked in
writing Guterres and Dujarric:
"Now that the Trump
Administration has given CNN
time (44 hours) to response to
their re-suspension, please
explain why the UN did not nad
has not provided even that
amount of time or due process
- and immediately provide it,
readmitting Inner City Press
in the interim to the noon
briefing and SG and GA
proceedings.
More specifically, please
immediately explain how Mr.
Dujarric's statement that
“press credentials to work at
the UN, just like any other
institution, is a 'privilege'”
is different in any way that
the position taken by the
Trump Administration in
response to the CNN lawsuit.
Now that the Federal judiciary
has ruled that access to the
White House is not, as OSSG
Dujarric has claimed, a
privilege but a right, this is
a FORMAL REQUEST THAT THE SG
LIFT MIS-USED LEGAL IMMUNITY
IN THIS CASE." Eight hours
later, no answer to this or
any other question submitted,
on DRC, Cameroon, Mali.
Guterres' UN is corrupt, and
Dujarric is a corrupter. We'll
have more on this.
The pretexts of
Dujarric for Guterres are lies
- now that they are becoming
public, the ban is more
disgusting and should be
UNtenable.
Two days
after Dujarric's threat this
reporter was pushed
out of the General
Assembly lobby during a speech
by Guterres by UN Security
Lieutenant Ronald E. Dobbins,
who did it again more
violently on July
3. Since then Inner City
Press has been banned
from entering the UN, and
Guterres even tried
to get Inner City Press ousted
from Park East Synagogue
twenty blocks north of the UN
on October 31.
As
many online have questioned
this no due process ouster,
including from Cameroon,
Japan,
the UK,
Italy
and other places in Europe, we
can now report that Dujarric
while refusing to answer Inner
City Press' and a UN
Expert's written
questions about how to appeal
this lifetime ban has reached
out to try to quiet some
critics.
Tellingly, while
he has entirely ignored for
example Anglophone Cameroonian
critics regardless of how
polite or articulate they are,
or how many social media
followers they have, Dujarric
has reached out to European
critics. What does he tell
them?
To give
the UN its best chance, Inner
City Press on the morning of
November 8 emailed questions
to Guterres, his Deputy Amina
Mohammed, Alison Smale,
Dujarric and his Deputy Farhan
Haq including: "November 8-2:
I am informed that the SG's
spokesman has selectively
contacted those (from Europe)
raising questions about the UN
3 July 2018 Press ouster and
ban since, including stating
that unnamed UN staff members
or officials demand a lifetime
ban in order to feel “safe.”
Given the lack of due process,
please name which officials or
safe claim to feel unsafe in
order to justify censorship,
and the basis for your claims.
Also, again, answer UNSR David
Kaye's and others' question:
what is the appeals process
for a unilateral no due
process physical ouster and
banning by the UN of a
journalist?" But seven hour
later, no answer to any of the
questions.
So,
for now due to the UN's
constant threat of retaliation
even against those it has
unilaterally chosen to reach
out to with dirt that cannot
stand the light of day, this
is a composite:
Dujarric claims
that Inner City Press made
"diplomats" feel unsafe. But
he has yet to provide the name
of a single diplomat, other
than the false Morocco Mission
complaint in USG Alison
Smale's 17 August 2018 ban
letter.
Dujarric claims
that his staff didn't like
having the movement reported
on. This seems to refer to
Inner City Press, once it had
no office to use, working on a
bench in the Secretariat lobby
and noting when spokespeople
who refused to even
acknowledge formal questions
went out to lunch. This is not
a basis to ban a journalist
for life.
Dujarric goes low
and says that unnamed female
reporters didn't want to see
Inner City Press doing
stand-up Periscope broadcasts.
But the purpose of these --
filming on the fourth floor
was permitted without an
escort, Inner City Press was
told by Media Accreditation --
was to show EMPTY offices, for
example Morocco state media,
while Inner City Press had
nowhere to work. In fact,
Inner City Press went out of
its way not to speak with or
engage in any way with
Dujarric's coterie of pro UN
correspondents - that why it
left the building after work
through the garage, which was
later used against it.
There is
more, and we will have more.
But it is clear these are
pretexts. And even if Antonio
"The Censor" Guterres, who
believes it is impermissible
for a journalist to do a
critical stand up on the
public sidewalk across two
lanes of traffic from the $15
million publicly funded
mansion he (sometimes) lives
in believes these pretexts, an
interim solution was and is
clear.
Simply
allow Inner City Press in to
go to the noon briefing and
asked question - unless that
is what they are afraid of -
and to cover UNSC stakeouts
and Budget Committee meetings.
It is pathetic that a UN and
Secretary General that be
focused on "conflict
prevention" can't find a
solution other than violent
ouster and banning for a
critical journalist. We'll
have more on this.
This
is how any dictatorship would
try to justifying physically
assaulting and banning a
reporter - say that the
journalist's reporting made
unnamed people feel unsafe in
unspecified ways.
Yes,
Inner City Press named UN
officials who took money from
now convicted briber Ng Lap
Seng, including to provide Ng
with falsified General
Assembly documents. Is it
legitimate for Guterres' UN to
oust and ban a media for
making briber-takers feel
unsafe? There are others: the
Patrick Ho trial starts this
month.
Even
in Dujarric's private outreach
to European critics, he has no
evidence. This is why he and
USG Alison Smale never offered
a hearing or opportunity to be
heard: there is no evidence,
the charges are Trump-ed up.
Smale's deputy claims an article
shouldn't have been written
about him using audio of what
he said at an official
stake-out position accepted
(at least for other media) by
Smale's own Department, which
called frivolous the Morocco
Mission complaint Smale also
used.
But today
we ask: why does Dujarric
refuse to response for example
to African critics while
reaching out to Europeans to
say that the banning of Inner
City Press should be accepted,
that asking the UN questions
in person is a privilege? It
is because Dujarric himself is
privileged. Publicly available
records -- don't be scared --
show that Dujarric bought an
apartment on Manhattan's Upper
East Side for $3,785,000.
Now
the UN is wasteful - but does
it pay its spokesman enough to
buy a $4,000,000 apartment?
The money, it seemed from
public records, came from
(where else) an art gallery,
the Odyssia Gallery in New
York, which among other things
produces vanity shows. The NY
Times had reported that
"Ilaria Skouras Quadrani, a
daughter of Mr. and Mrs.
Federico Quadrani of Rome and
New York, was married last
Monday to Stephane Dujarric de
la Riviere, a son of Anka M.
Begley of New York and
Francois Dujarric de la
Riviere of Paris. Msgr. Robert
Charlebois performed the
ceremony at the church of San
Pietro in Montorio in Rome.
Mrs. Dujarric, 24, is a
researcher at the Kate Gansz
Company, an art dealer in
London. She graduated from
Mount Holyoke College and
received a master's degree in
art history from New York
University. Her parents own
the Odyssia Gallery in New
York." This Odyssia
Gallery, which later published
a book (cover photo here) of
Ilaria's drawings, has or had
as address 305 East 61st
Street, Manhattan. But a
recent reporter's visit to the
site found an empty building.
So what IS the source of this
spokesman's $4 million
apartment?
It
is all very nice, a position
from which to target hard
working media and try to
destroy a shirt, a laptop, a
livelihood, all without due
process, only later
evidence-free excuses provided
in private to other European,
banning questions from Africa
and about the UN's corruption.
It is UNacceptable. We'll have
more on this.
***
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