In Other Media-eg New Statesman, AJE, FP, Georgia, NYT,  Azerbaijan, CSM Click here to contact us     .

By Matthew Russell Lee, CJR Letter PFTracker

UNITED NATIONS GATE, April 26 – Before Inner City Press was roughed up by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres' Security on June 22 and July 3, 2018 and banned since then, it insistently asked for disclosure of how many of Guterres' publicly funded trips took him through his real home, Lisbon. The questions are not been answered by Spokesman Stephane Dujarric, who on 2 November 2018 simply bicycled away as Inner City Press asked about Guterres' failure in Cameroon and attempt to get even Park East Synagogue to oust Inner City Press from covering his October 31 speech about tolerance. 

  And now on April 26 from Beijing, from Guterres' craven Belt and Road Initiative speech as Guterres conceals his links with BRI briber China Energy Fund Committee which tried to buy the oil company of Gulbenkian Foundation which has paid Guterres: "Convened by President Xi Jinping, we come together at this forum on the Belt and Road in the face of uncertainty and unease around the globe.      I want to recognize China for its central role as a pillar of international cooperation and multilateralism... United Nations country teams stand ready to support Member States in capacity and governance building, and in achieving a harmonious and sustainable integration of the Belt and Road projects in their own economies and societies in accordance with national development plans, anchored in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The world needs to take profit of the Belt and Road Initiative to help close significant financing gaps for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, especially in the developing world, in particular, the need for about $1 trillion needed for infrastructure investments in developing countries.... The United Nations is poised to support the alignment of the Belt and Road Initiative with the Sustainable Development Goals, to share knowledge, and to make the most of the opportunities of this large-scale initiative for maximum sustainable development dividends.      Let us work together to restore trust by making good on the shared promise of the 2030 Agenda and our common commitment to leave no one behind.     Thank you."

Before 10 am on April 25, Inner City Press asked Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric, as well as Guterres' email address and that of his deputy and Alison Smale, "April 25-1: Now that SG Guterres is lavishing praise on China's "Belt and Road" please immediately provide the full transcript of Guterres' "interview with Chinese journalists" from which this propaganda came out: "UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Tuesday that the Belt and Road Initiative is a "very important opportunity" to the world. With such a huge volume of investment for international cooperation as the Belt and Road Initiative, it is a "very important opportunity for enhancing the capacity to implement the sustainable development goals and an important opportunity to launch green perspectives in the years to come," Guterres said during an interview with Chinese journalists at the UN headquarters before leaving for the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing. (Xinhua)." Immediately state how many staff of Xinhua and other Chinese state media the UN DPI/DGC has granted accreditation to to currently enter the UN. 

 We'll have more on this. On March 2 with Guterres presumably in New York but not in the mansion at 5 pm - there were no UN security vehicles nearby - he nonetheless left all lights in the second floor blazing. This is pure waste, pure hypocrisy given what Guterres claims about his commitment to sustainability - all the more so because it was broad day light. On matters ranging from censorship and corruption to this, the hypocrisy gets worse and worse. On November 20, the day Guterres accepted the resignation of Erik Solheim -- which Guterres hypocritically demanded on November 19 -- for similar misuse of public funds to travel to Oslo and Paris, Inner City Press asked Guterres who his travel to Lisbon was any different. Guterres refused to answer, got into the back of his publicly funded Mercedes and drove off. Video here. On November 21 Dujarric was asked how / where Guterres would spend the next day, US Thanksgiving and replied Guterres would be "glued to his email." But past 11 am on November 21 there was none of the usual UN Security in front of the $15 million publicly funded mansion on Sutton Place where Guterres (sometimes) lives. Vine video here. Before 9 am on Monday November 26 Inner City Press in writing asked Guterres, his Deputy Amina J. Mohammed and his two spokesmen: "November 26-3: As asked November 23 without any answer at all, please immediately state where SG Guterres has been since November 21, how much it has so far cost the UN budget / public, including in light of the Spokesman's response on Nov 21 that the SG would be “scrolling his email” and in the context of officials such as previous host city Mayor and now UN official Bloomberg disclosing when he was out of town and where - and of SG Guterres now reported role in demanding Erik Solheim “pull himself, now” for just such undisclosed personal travel?" Twelve hours later this was not answered, despite the promise of answers from Guterres' Communicator Alison Smale to UNSR David Kaye. But at the day's noon briefing Inner City Press was banned front, when asked why Guterres has said nothing on Ukaine, Dujarric said: "the Secretary-General is on plane on his way back to New York as we speak.  He is being fully briefed on the situation." So that's admitting Guterres was gone - while refusing to say where or how much it cost. And so much for being "glued to his email." Today's UN is corrupt. On Friday November 23 when the Spokesperson's Office was open, people getting paid, Inner City Press submitted five written questions including, beyond Cameroon, DRC and India, this: "November 23-3: Please immediately state where SG Guterres is, how much it is costing the UN budget / public, including in light of the Spokesman's response on Nov 21 that the SG would be “scrolling his email” and in the context of officials such as previous host city Mayor and now UN official Bloomberg disclosing when he was out of town and where." Even by the next day, not one of the questions was answered, including about a Kenyan priest killed by Biya's army in Cameroon, despite UK USG Alison Smale's promise to UNSR David Kaye that questions would be answered. This on the eve of a trial that will show how irresponsible and corrupt Guterres has been as UNSG.  And Friday evening, still the empty mansion, Vine here. Seems Guterres has taken off again. Even Trump tells the public where he is going (Florida). Even billionaire NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who unlike Guterres didn't use public money for his travel, ended up disclosed he was going to the Caribbean. How untransparent and arrogant can Guterres get, while having roughed up and still banned the Press that asks? Guterres has had Inner City Press banned from the UN for life, by his Alison Smale. But Inner City Press, even banned, on August 28 published the first in an exclusive and detailed series. Now on November 3 with this total lack of transparency from the UN Secretariat itself, Inner City Press can exclusively report that Guterres' current four day trip to Lisbon, his 16th as Secretary General, was only booked on October 24, making it more expensive, and is entirely paid for by the public. What was the pretext for the trip? A 15 minute "Web Summit" speech; Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric said it would be live streamd - free, one assumed - on the Web Summit platform. But there, to see it, members of the public had to "pre-register" for €850 for the 2019 Web Summit (purchased by Lisbon for 10 years). Now we can report that on each of his 16 publicly-funded junkets to Lisbon Guterres has taken two UN Security with him. How much does it cost? The UN refuses to answer, prefers to rough up and ban the Press that asks. This time they have refused to confirm - or attempt to deny - that Guterres staffer Aguinaldo Baptista went as well. Inner City Press asked, 23 hours ago: "November 5-1: Please state the cost to the UN budget of the SG's current trip to Lisbon, deny or confirm that staffer Aguinaldo Baptista has also traveled there and if so the cost and rationale for that, Web Summit (?) or CPLP, and what the benefit to the UN and public is of travel to receive this CPLP award. What other UN staff and security went, for how long, and how much has it cost the public?" No answer. Totally unaccountable, not unlike Paul Biya's use of funds from Cameroon's coffers to pay hotel bills in Geneva in cash. Birds of a feather. As to the Lisbon speech, Inner City Press immediately put a how to see it question to Dujarric and his deputy - no answer on that. So clicking the obligatory "yes" to pre-register and accept Web Summit promotions, even then just as Guterres began blathering about medical devises and dating apps the screen was cut off and the promotion blocked it again, unable to be moved. Vine video here. Guterres has put the UN up for sale, sometimes intentional, sometimes because he just has contempt. Also at the Summit, behind this promotional paywall, is Tony Blair. Inner City Press also raised the issue to Guterres' Global Censor Alison Smale, Deputy SG Amina J. Mohammed, her chief of staff Nelson Muffuh and staffer Aguinaldo Baptista, who along on the public dime. Was this justified by Guterres' personal Prize from the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries, CPLP - previously awarded to, among others, the currently incarcerated Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva? The decision to give it to Guterres was made months ago in July in Cabo Verde, where Guterres' son Pedro Guimarães e Melo De Oliveira Guterres does UNdisclosed business; no recusals or safeguards from Guterres, only the roughing up and banning of the Press which asks. On November 5, Inner City Press asked: "it was said that the SG's speech in Lisbon will be streamed on Web Summit platform. But there, after a mere minute, it says To continue watching, pre-register for the 2019 Web Summit. So it is for-pay? Question Nov 5-1 is reiterated: “November 5-1: Please state the cost to the UN budget of the SG's current trip to Lisbon, deny or confirm that staffer Aguinaldo Baptista has also traveled there and if so the cost and rationale for that, Web Summit (?) or CPLP, and what the benefit to the UN and public is of travel to receive this CPLP award. What other UN staff and security went, for how long, and how much has it cost the public?” And as Guterres' 15 minutes speech, ostensibly justifying all this public spending, approached there was no answer. We'll have more on this. Back on September 7 Inner City Press reported that Guterres intends to use even Kofi Annan's death and the September 13 event in Ghana as a pretext to again fly to Lisbon. He'll turn it into a five day junket, leaving New York on September 11 (when he's arranged a Myanmar white washing CPPF meeting, also reported exclusively by banned Inner City Press, here), offer praise sure to be ironic of Kofi Annan who Rest in Peace never had a critical journalist roughed up and banned - then fly to Lisbon on the public dime, until September 16. How much will it cost? The UN refuses to answer. But it is not their money. And the climate of cover up includes Guterres not disclosing his own son Pedro Guimarães e Melo De Oliveira Guterres' business links in Africa and elsewhere. We'll have more on this: it is what journalism is supposed to do, hold institutions and those who lead them accountable. Here from multiple member state sources and open source are the dates of Guterres' first 14 -- 30% of total UN trips - through Lisbon for each of which Inner City Press has asked, and not been answered, and live-stream Periscope of the UN's empty massion on 57th Street and Sutton Place for which it was roughed up and banned:

1/13/2017-1/20/2017    NY->Lisbon->Geneva->Davos Platz->Zurich

2/9/2017-2/20/2017            NY->Istanbul->Riyadh->Dubai->Abu Dhabi->Muscat->Doha->Cairo->Frankfurt->Bonn->Munich->Lisbon

2/24/2017-2/27/2017    NY->Lisbon->Geneva

3/25/2017-3/31/2017    NY->Lisbon->Amman->Baghdad->Arbil->Gaziantep

5/9/2017-5/22/2017            NY->London->Beijing->Strasbourg->Geneva->Lisbon

5/25/2017-5/29/2017    NY->Catania->Lisbon

6/20/2017-6/26/2017    NY->Entebbe->Lisbon

6/27/2017-7/4/2017            NY->Washington DC.->Geneva->Lisbon, (30/06/2017 - 04/07/2017 in Lisbon)

11/3/2017-11/7/2017    NY->Lisbon

2/12/2018-2/19/2018    NY->Kuwait->London->Munich->Lisbon

3/14/2018-3/16/2018    NY->Rome->Lisbon

5/11/2018-5/19/2018    NY->Lisbon->Vienna->Brussels->Washington DC

5/23/2018-5/31/2018    NY->Geneva->Lisbon->Paris->Bamako

7/6/2018-7/11/2018        NY->Lisbon->Addis Ababa->Kinshasa

  Do the member states paying for this - whom Guterres' Smale quotes without name as supporting the roughing up of and permanent ban on Inner City Press, agree with this? Do they know this? How arrogant or out of touch a self-styled world leader is has been revealed in the Leader's contemptuous approach to freedom of the press and whose who even gently chide him on it, including a Nobel Peace Prize winner. No, this is not a reference to Donald Trump, but to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. The Nobel Peace Prize winner who has sought the reversal of Guterres' outrageous 56 day and counting ban on Inner City Press even entering the UN is Jose Ramos Horta of Timor Leste, still serving Guterres' UN, who told Inner City Press on August 27, "Dear Matthew I did reach the very inner sanctum of the UN system reporting on your case to no avail. Apologies but I don't know what else I can do." Later on August 27 an independent journalist asked Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric why things are not fixed with Inner City Press' access, since it "looks bad" given other attacks on press freedom. Video here. Dujarric tried to cut the journlist off, insisting to say this is about freedom of the press would be wrong. (Then why is it in the Press Freedom Tracker, here, and the Columbia Journalism Review, among others for example in the UK, Japan, Italy and Cameroon?) Dujarric changed the earlier reference to Inner City Press being in a "garage ramp" - something Guterres' Grand Inquisitor Alison Smale never asked Inner City Press about - to being in the "parking lot." (Inner City Press' pass worked to get there, many use it as a way to exit, and several senior UN official, anti-Guterres sources of Inner City Press ask to meet it and give it documents there. Maybe that's the reason.) Dujarric then said that Inner City Press creates a "hostile environment" for the diplomats, some times correspondents and always UN officials it covers. Seems clear the ban is entirely about freedom of the Press, freedom to question, and a Secretary General and vindictive team of holdovers who seek to retaliate against questions and coverage, including live streamed covering, with a lifetime ban with no appeal. Here is an example of Inner City Press' August 28 questioning at the Delegates Entrance, since Guterres and Alison Smale have banned it from the Security Council stakeout. Is this hostile?  Would Guterres, former NYT bureau chief Smale and former former Dujarric like to write Inner City Press' questions? Its articles? Perhaps to omit all refernce to Cameroon and what Guterres did and didn't do? On August 28 during an empty noon briefing Inner City Press was again banned from, it asked in writing Dujarric, Alison Smale, Amina J. Mohammed and others 13 questions including: "At yesterday's noon briefing you said I am banned because I was “found in the parking lot.” Since no one spoke to me about this, please state when and where, and explain how that is a violation if non resident correspondents' passes open those doors, unlike the bathrooms on the 4th floor, and how this Trumped up into so serious a violation as to ban me, including from the upcoming UNGA week. Also, again, name the diplomats (and UN staff and journalists) you yesterday publicly said I created a hostile environmental for. Honestly, that was not my intent. But I have a right to know. And it sounds troublingly similar to questioning and critique: free press. August 28-2: This is again a request to be informed -- including if the question is view as hostile - of the reason on the SG's Public Financial Disclosure page USG Smale is not listed, while Natalia Gherman who was named to her position later than USG Smale is listed and has made public disclosure - and for an explanation why Smale did not recuse herself as was clearly called for from banning me." While two other questions were answered on August 28, these were not touched. This is censorship.  For now, though, Nobel Peace Prize winner who has worked for the UN has been rebuffed. What they say Trump is, Guterres is as well and more so - only Guterres has actually roughed up and banned a critical journalist for 55 days, with total impunity. Hence this story. 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 most recently Secretary General Antonio Guterres' failure and conflict of interest on 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.” It cited what it called three previous warnings. But on further inspection there is no there, there. See below. In the middle of the now 55 day ban, Jose Ramos Horta who has known and answered Inner City Press for years wrote to it, somewhat comedicly, "I am puzzled by such an extreme DPI decision of banning you for life from UNHQ for reporting purposes. Here in Timor Leste our Govt never ever barred a journalist from entering a public space and reporting even though our Media has never been friendly with Govt officials.I cannot imagine how serious an offense you may have committed that may have justified such an extreme action by DPI. Did you throw a bomb, rotten eggs, tomatoes, spaghetti at some guy? I shall try to reach the SG." And then, on August 27, "Dear Matthew I did reach the very inner sanctum of the UN system reporting on your case to no avail. Apologies but I don't know what else I can do." This is how arrogant and out of touch Guterres is, Lusophone or not. People would report this about Trump, whole profiles of those they say should have spoken out - Mattis, Kelly, members of Congress and the Senatre - and isolation and rage. But what about Guterres? Jose Ramos Horta, who has never had a problem being public, is a man of integrity, on the right side on this one when all is said and done. What about others? We'll have more, much more, on this - there has been other outreach, and more to come. One individual, even with a former NYT Global Communicator like Alison Smale, cannot be allowed to censor like this, to impose a ban on a journalist for the first time in 40 years, an active journalist Guterres and Smale and UNnamed others want to prevent or hinder Inner City Press from covering this UN General Assembly High Level Week and the UN going forward. We will not rest. Watch this site.

  In her lifetime ban letter, Smale also claimed that Guterres' spokesmen would answer Inner City Press' e-mailed questions. But this it false. Of the fourteen question Inner City Press e-mailed to them, and Smale, and Deputy SG Amina J. Mohammed and others on August 23 and 24, not one was answered. Not one. Including: "August 24-3: Given that Deputy Spokesman Haq told IPS “we respect his press rights, but we also want to respect other’s press rights. And some journalists feel their press rights have been impeded by his actions” - state, since this is the basis of me being banned, who these are, and how they feel their press rights have been impeded by my actions. Also all video and other evidence that Haq alluded to to IPS should be produced, today, since it is the basis of my being banned." Nothing has been provided, eight hours later, by Spokesman Stephane Dujarric who was drawing pay all day after having essentially ordered or passed on from his boss the order to rough up Inner City Press. From the IPS article: "Lee has been known for asking thought-provoking questions during daily briefings and at press stakeouts. He has reported on global conflicts such as those in Sri Lanka, Congo, Somalia, and others... However, the incidents with Lee started back in 2012, when he was warned by the DPI to treat his fellow journalists with respect." That's not the case. In 2012, the President of the UN Correspondents Association Giampaolo Pioli, who had rented one of him Manhattan apartments to one Palitha Kahona then unilaterally granted his request or demand for an UNCA screening of the war crimes denial film of the Sri Lanka government he represented at the UN, ordered Inner City Press to remove from the Internet its article about the conflict of interest. Inner City Press declined but offered to publish any response, at any length. Pioli and the UNCA board demanded removal of the article, and ultimately Inner City Press quit UNCA and co-founded FUNCA, the Free UN Coalition for Access. The UN claimed it was uninvolved - instead, then head of Accreditation Stephane Dujarric tried to condition Inner City Press' re-accreditation as a resident correspondent on more positive coverage of the Secretariat, specifically his fellow Frenchman Herve Ladsous, the head of Peacekeeping who famously said peacekeepers would rape less if they had more "R&R." So from 2012 it was the UN trying to strong arm positive coverage of its officials, and using the aura of "other correspondents" in UNCA as the leverage - making UN the UN Censorship Alliance.

***

Feedback: Editorial [at] innercitypress.com

UN Office: S-303, UN, NY 10017 USA

Reporter's mobile (and weekends): 718-716-3540

Search innercitypress.com  Search WWW (censored?)

Other, earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.

 Copyright 2006-2019 Inner City Press, Inc. To request reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at] innercitypress.com for