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By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 17 – After having covered the UN since 2005 for Inner City Press, and pursued stories of UN under-performance from Sri Lanka to Darfur and Haiti to Yemen and Cameroon, at 4 pm on Friday August 17 I got a four page letter from Under Secretary General Alison Smale, formerly the New York Times' Berlin bureau chief. We've put the letter on Scribd here, Patreon download here. 

The letter informed me, without a single opportunity to be heard and offer rebuttal, that “your accreditation is hereby withdrawn pursuant to the Guidelines.” Inner City Press had informed Smale, and Secretary General Antonio Guterres who is ultimately responsible for this, that Smale must recuse herself.

  The filing continues: "Dear President of the UN General Assembly,
I write to request that you restore of all my rights as an accredited journalist at the UN, specifically my reinstatement as a ‘resident’ UN journalist with full access rights to UN premises, consistent with the UN Media Guidelines1, as well as the return of my office. The decisions taken by the UN Secretariat in 2016 to downgrade my status as a non-resident journalist, and then in 2018 to withdraw my access rights and to forcibly eject and ban me from the UN premises since 3 July 2018 are ultra vires.
  Before setting forth the legal basis, I remind you that the day you were elected President of the General Assembly, I asked you at your press encounter about the UN bribery case of John Ashe and Ng Lap Seng (to which the case of Sam Kutesa and Patrick Ho of CEFC has since been added). You replied, There will be no secrets. To give any meaning to this, you cannot stand by as an investigative journalist is roughed up and banned, and is threatened with not being able to cover the 2018 General Assembly High Level Week for the first time in 12 years, simply because the Secretary General doesn’t like my coverage and questions about corruption, use of public funds, under-performance in Cameroon, etc. The deadline for covering the upcoming UNGA week is September 5. I asked that you ensure all my rights – and S303 – are restored (well) before that time.
The UN Secretary General does not have the delegated authority under the UN Charter to take decisions in relation to the conduct of the media or to institute sanctions on the media, just as he has no authority to take such decisions in relation to government representatives or non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Under Article 97 of the UN Charter, the Secretary General’s role is limited to that of the “Chief Administrative Officer” of the organisation (he has responsibility for the administration of the human, financial and other resources of the organisation) and he cannot assume further duties unless “entrusted to do so” by the UN General Assembly, Security Council, ECOSOC or Trustee Council (Article 98 of the UN Charter)2. To-date, no UN General Assembly, Security Council or ECOSOC resolution has been passed conferring on the Secretary General the role as decision-maker on media accreditation, adjudicating disputes with the media, or instituting and monitoring sanctions against the media. As such any decisions on my accreditation, access and resident status cannot be taken by the Secretary General, and must rest with the General Assembly, the main decision-making organ of the UN.
By way of background, I am a journalist who has been reporting on the UN and its specialized agencies since 2004, accredited by the UN in 2005 and made a resident correspondent in 2006 until that was stripped from me as I pursued the John Ashe / Ng Lap Seng case into the UN Press Briefing Room, inappropriately “lent  out” by the SG’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric. My articles, published at innercitypress.com3 are widely read around the world and, as is relevant here, at UN Headquarters in New York and other UN duties stations, by Member States, UN staff and by those with an interest in the workings of the organization. My articles are frequently critical of the UN establishment and its senior officials. The fact that I bear witness to inconvenient truths, effectively as a whistleblower undertaking protected activity, is no justification for my illegal censure and ill-treatment.
The decisions taken by the Secretariat in 2016 to downgrade my status to non-resident journalist, and then in 2018 to withdraw my access rights and to forcibly eject me and ban me from the UN premises are fundamentally flawed, retaliatory, unethical, tainted by conflict of interest and evidence of corruption.   My physical ejection was also criminal, and I have filed a criminal complaint with the New York City Police (reference #2018-017-2848_see attached) on 4_ July 2018, which complaint is still pending. Further, the Secretary General has a clear conflict of interest in my case stemming from my reporting, on an ongoing basis, allegations of corruption, fraud, serious misconduct and unethical behaviour at the top echelons of the UN, as well as on the continuing retaliation against UN whistleblowers. I have broken the news on many stories at innercitypress.com which sadly reflect negatively on the performance of senior UN officials, including the Secretary General.
Many of the allegations of misconduct I have reported publicly at innercitypress.com have been substantiated through ‘duly authorised’ UN investigations, including the UN’s gross institutional failure in responding to the child sexual abuse and pedophilia by peacekeepers in the Central African Republic (CAR) and the abuse of authority by senior UN officials against Anders Kompass (see CAR Review Panel Report A/71/994). The material I have published on innercitypress.com has been used by UN investigators as evidence in their ‘duly authorised’ investigations5. My articles continue to break the news on sexual abuse, perpetrated by UN peacekeepers and staff, against vulnerable people whom the UN is supposed to protect.
I drew the international community’s attention to the human rights violations in the English-speaking parts of Cameroon and your apparent silence in responding to these abuses, which was noted by many anglophone Cameroonians. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein belatedly issued a statement on 25 July 2018 condemning the abuses6.  I also reported the Secretary General’s apparent failure to initiate an audit of the China Energy Fund Committee / Patrick Ho / Sam Kutesa UN bribery case, which has resulted in a US criminal prosecution for bribery and international money laundering7.
  I closely cover UN public financial disclosures as you know, as discovered only yesterday that USG DPI Alison Smale, who purported to be doing a “review” of me without once speaking to me or given me an opportunity to be heard, is not listed on the Public Financial Disclosure website, despite being given her position prior to Natalia Gherman at UNRCCA, who is listed. You said, There will be no secret. USG Smale, on whom I have reported such as above (as well as what whistleblowers told me was diversion of funds meant for Swahili programming to “social media propaganda for SG Guterres”) has a conflict of interest in reviewing me. For the reasons in this letter, for the good of the UN and as required by law, you must take action (see below).
For years I have reported publicly the UN’s failure to protect its whistleblowers, including high profile cases such as Anders Kompass, Caroline Hunt-Matthes, Miranda Brown and Emma Reilly.  My public reporting of these failures by the UN to protect its whistleblowers have now been substantiated by the UN Joint Inspection Unit, in their recent report8 and recognised by the UK Parliamentary Committee on International Development’s Inquiry into Sexual abuse and exploitation in the aid sector9. I have also reported publicly that the ongoing retaliation against UN whistleblowers appears to violate the US law for the protection of UN whistleblowers (Section 7048 of the US Consolidated Appropriations Act), which stipulates that the State Department must withhold 15% of the US’ annual financial contributions to the UN unless the UN “implements” best practice for the protection of whistleblowers.
Given that I have publicly reported allegations of serious misconduct, wrongdoing and unethical conduct at the top of the UN and that these allegations clearly reflect negatively on the performance as Secretary General and that of UN senior officials (his subordinates), neither he nor his senior officials can bring an impartial and objective view to my case.
The International Code of Conduct of Civil Servants, to which the Secretary General is bound, states:
“Conflicts of interest may occur when an international civil servant’s personal interests interfere with the performance of his/her official duties or call into question the qualities of integrity, independence and impartiality required the status of an international civil servant.”
The failure to report and address a conflict of interest constitutes serious misconduct under the UN’s Staff Regulations and Rules. UN Staff Regulation 1.2 m states:
“A conflict of interest occurs when, by act or omission, a staff member’s personal interests interfere with the performance of his or her official duties and responsibilities or with the integrity, independence and impartiality required by the staff member’s status as an international civil servant. When an actual or possible conflict of interest does arise, the conflict shall be disclosed by staff members to their head of office, mitigated by the Organization and resolved in favour of the interests of the Organization.”
In the case of a conflict of interest by the Secretary General, the matter shall be referred to the President of the General Assembly. The UN’s Office of Internal Oversight Services’ (OIOS) classifies ‘conflict of interest’ as ‘Category I’ ‘Serious’, the highest level of misconduct, “according to the relative seriousness of the contravention and risk to the Organization”10.
Further, Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Article 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that:
“Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal in the determination of his rights and obligations...”
I have not been provided with access to any such independent and impartial tribunal. Instead the Secretariat has wrongfully and unilaterally taken on the role of judge and executioner, with a clear lack of independence and impartiality. The Secretariat claimed in 2016 that it cancelled my ‘resident’ journalist status because of my allegedly not upholding the UN Media Guidelines; however, notwithstanding my categorial rejection of this claim, its decision is in any event tainted by conflict of interest and hence fundamentally flawed. While Mr. Antonio Guterres was not in office as Secretary General at the time the Secretariat took its tainted and fundamentally flawed decision in 2016 to rescind my resident status, he has perpetuated the wrongful decision, injustice and violation of my human rights: this must now be urgently corrected. The Secretariat has unlawfully appointed itself as the decision-maker in terms of determining the residency, access and accreditation rights of journalists, without having the delegated legal authority or mandate to do so. There are no legal instruments conferring such decision-making authority on the Secretariat, and as such the decisions taken to rescind my access rights and ban me from the premises are unlawful. With NGOs, the authority to grant accreditation and access is retained by Member States, through the Committee on NGOs. The Secretariat clearly has a conflict of interest in deciding on the rights of journalists, especially in cases where the journalist has been critical of the Secretariat’s performance.
I request that you, as the President of the General Assembly, the decision-making organ of the United Nations:
1) Immediately rescind the Secretariat’s ultra vires, fundamentally flawed, retaliatory, corrupt, unethical decisions to withdraw my status as a ‘resident’ UN journalist and ban from the UN premises – these unilateral decisions are tainted by clear conflict of interest;
2) Immediately reinstate me as a ‘resident’ UN accredited journalist and restore all of my access rights (consistent with the UN Media Guidelines), including to a suitable office in the UN premises, specifically S-303A which is barely used, by one who has asked no questions in a decade and barely came in, and to remove the taint;
3) Ensure that UN senior officials, including in the Department of Safety and Security, Department of Public Information, and the Spokesperson and Deputy Spokesperson desist from taking any further retaliatory actions against me. 
4) Failing that I request that you immediately lift the immunity of the Secretary General, as he holds responsibility as the ‘Chief Administrative Officer’ of the Secretariat for my physical ejection from the UN premises on 4 July 2018, detailed in the attached complaint to the NYC police, so that the NYC police may investigate my complaint.
Further, I urge you to put measures in place to ensure that the Secretariat acts with integrity, independence and impartiality, and that it upholds the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including on freedom of expression, to ensure that the injustice I have suffered is not repeated.
I believe that my reinstatement as a ‘resident’ journalist with full restoration of my access rights and office would be in the best interests of the organization and consistent with the wishes of Member States, many of whom continue to express strong concerns about my situation and more generally about the retaliation against journalists and whistleblowers.  I note your statement on World Press Freedom Day (3 May 2018)11:
“When journalists are silenced, people suffer. And when journalists are free to do their work, people are given tools that can help guide them to decent lives on a sustainable planet.
And, journalists are also crucial to what we do here – at the United Nations. They bring our work outside these halls. They communicate with people we sometimes cannot. They hold us to account, and call us to action.
So, on this day and all days, let us reassure journalists that they can count on us.
Let us recommit: to protect them, to include them, and to respect the role that they play both inside and outside these walls.”
The credibility of the UN will be further eroded if it continues to retaliate against and crackdown on a journalist for exposing wrongdoing and unethical behavior. 
The foregoing is sent without prejudice and under reservation of all rights.
Sincerely,
Matthew Russell Lee

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