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By Matthew Russell Lee, CJR Letter PFTracker, Vine video

UNITED NATIONS GATE, June 18 – 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 Guterres' links to convicted UN briber CEFC China Energy and silence on China's abuses in Xinjiang and Hong Kong.

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 31 October 2018 speech about tolerance.

   On June 14 Dujarric said this, about Guterres' counter-terrrorism envoy on a dubious trip to Xinjiang to bluewash the mass detention of Uighurs: "Vladimir Voronkov is on an official trip to China at the invitation of the Chinese Government... there will be some sort of a press release from his office at the end of his visit at some point over the weekend." 

   With Guterres and his spokesman refusing to answer Press questions, now Inner City Press has in writing asked them to respond to this: "Dolkun Isa, president of theWorld Uyghur Congress, called the Xinjiang visit by Voronkov “an irrevocable mistake on the part of General Secretary Guterres.”  “It is truly shameful for the UN that its Under Secretary for Counterterrorism Vladimir Voronkov visited East Turkestan and China at a time anywhere from one to three million Uyghurs have been locked up in Chinese concentration camps for more than two years,” he told RFA on Monday.  “This official visit, approved by the UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres, allows China to link its crimes against humanity in East Turkestan as a necessary counterterrorism measure,” said Isa.  “Instead of raising and investigating China’s horrific treatment of the Uyghur people, the visit by Voronkov should be seen as the UN not only endorsing China’s repression of the Uyghur people but rather legitimizing and collaborating with the authoritarian government in Beijing to further suppress the Uyghur people.” 

  And from the UN, no answers. Online, this canned statement, that said Voronkov “briefed on the implementation of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy and its four pillars, which focus on conditions conducive to terrorism, preventing and countering terrorism and the role of the United Nations, and upholding human rights and the rule of law.”

  On Sunday June 16, with Guterres' envoy Voronkov having left Xinjiang after blue washing it, nothing from the UN, only this from China's Foreign Ministry: Voronkov had visited Beijing and Xinjiang from June 13-15, meeting senior diplomats including Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng; these two sides "had a deep exchange of views on the international counter-terrorism situation and counter-terrorism cooperation between China and the United Nations, and reached a broad consensus", the ministry said.

  And from totally sold out Guterres' UN, nothing, despite what Dujarric said on camera. We'll have more on this.

   The media Guterres and Dujarric work with to conceal just how corrupt Guterres' UN has become are trying to downplay Guterres' role and financial links, and for example sloppily praise the UK. Reuters stated that the UK also opposes - then runs a quote from an unnamed UNSC diplomat. Oops. A scribe's former boss is quoted without disclosure of the conflict; the former boss has written, here, to Dujarric to get Inner City Press thrown out. Guterres' and Dujarric's UN and their collaborators are in fact similar to China and its state media.

 Now on June 14 from the US State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus, this: "Deputy Secretary John J. Sullivan spoke by phone today with United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres to convey deep concerns regarding Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Office Vladimir Voronkov’s planned travel to Xinjiang, China.  The Deputy Secretary expressed that such a visit is highly inappropriate in view of the unprecedented repression campaign underway in Xinjiang against Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Muslims.  The Deputy Secretary noted that Beijing continues to paint its repressive campaign against Uighurs and other Muslims as legitimate counterterrorism efforts when it is not, and stressed that the UN’s topmost counterterrorism official is putting at risk the UN’s reputation and credibility on counterterrorism and human rights by lending credence to these false claims.  The Deputy Secretary advocated for unmonitored and unhindered access to all camps and detainees in Xinjiang by UN human rights officials."

  So Guterres' capitulation politically to China is becoming known. But what about his personal financial links, and his censorship of the Press to cover them up? Watch this site.

  Three times in early June 2019banned Inner City Press in writing asked Guterres and Dujarric, "On China and human rights, what is the SG's belated comment today on the 30th anniversary of the slaughter by the government of non violent demonstrators in Tiananmen Square?" In the June 3 UN noon briefing, here was Guterres' answer:

On #Tiananmen UNSG @AntonioGuterres has "no particular comment;" @UN_Spokesperson @StephDujarric no answers to banned Press pic.twitter.com/0D20RAC3Dk

— Inner City Press (@innercitypress) June 4, 2019

Q: Secretary‑General's comment on 30 years anniversary of Tiananmen case, please? 

Spokesman Dujarric:  "No, I have no particular comment on that.  Okay.  Thank you very much.  See you tomorrow." Vine video here.

  No, only those they allow in to the UN and its briefing. So while ignoring Inner City Press' follow up questions, inside his briefing room Dujarric issued this dodge: "I think the Secretary… we're commenting on things that are happening today, right now, under his watch."

 In light of this "bygones" dodges, why is Guterres blaming the UN's budget crunch on the previous Secretary General who hasn't been at the controls for two and a half years? Guterres is killing the UN.

 On May 14, Inner City Press asked Guterres and Dujarric, "May 14-1: On China, human rights and NYC, what is the SG's comment and action if any on that a state-owned Chinese shipping company refused to lease an office space in NYC to  Amnesty International USA? Cosco Shipping acquired Orient Overseas in 2017, and took ownership the company’s real estate investments, including the office building in question, called Wall Street Plaza.  Amnesty said the organization was told that it is “not the best tenant” for a building owned by a Chinese state-owned firm." More than a day later, no answer. One wonders the position of Mayor De Blasio and his International Affairs representative Penny Abeywardena...

  On May 15, Inner City Press asked Guterres and Dujarric, "May 15-1: On China and the UN, beyond the ban on Taiwan journalists, what is the SG's explanation and/or action on that former political prisoners in China who now reside in the United States were informed by the UN accreditation desk in Geneva that they could not enter the premises without a passport from a UN member state. As political dissidents who have fled from China, the visitors did not have valid passports from the country? Dissidents who flee their home countries due to persecution are often not issued passports from their countries of refuge but are rather issued other valid forms of identification."

  Eight hours later, no answer. But there's this, sent to Inner City Press by several outraged UN staffers: "Scheduled demonstration outside VIC Gate 1 on Thursday, 16 May 2019, 10:00 -12:00 hours.   This is to inform VIC staff that on Thursday, 16 May 2019, between 10:00 hrs and 12:00 hrs there will be an authorized demonstration of approximately 100 demonstrators in Muhammad Asad Platz outside VIC Gate 1.  The organizers describe their demonstration message to "Support Taiwan’s participation to the World Health Organisation".  The UN Security and Safety Service, together with the host country police, will monitor this event for its duration.   Office of the Chief, Security and Safety Service United Nations Department of Safety and Security United Nations Office at Vienna." Yeah, Guterres' UN will monitor this event, and movement, for the duration. To (try to) save the UN, dump Guterres.

  While Guterres was in China banned Inner City Press in writing asked him and his spokesman Stephane Dujarric about China's crackdown in Hong Kong - no answer at all. Now even according to CNBC, tens of thousands of people marched on Hong Kong’s parliament on Sunday to demand the scrapping of proposed extradition rules that would allow people to be sent to mainland China for trial — a move which some fear puts the city’s core freedoms at risk.  Opponents of the proposal fear further erosion of rights and legal protections in the free-wheeling financial hub — freedoms which were guaranteed under the city’s handover from British colonial rule to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. Guterres said nothing. And when, CNBC reports, China censored its reporting from being broadcast in China, again nothing. Then again, Guterres has had critical Press roughed up and banned from the UN, for 298 days. He is corrupt.

  On April 27 from Beijing, from Guterres' second craven Belt and Road Initiative speech in as many days as he conceals his links with BRI briber China Energy Fund Committee which tried to buy the oil company of Gulbenkian Foundation which has paid Guterres: "I can assure you, Mr. President [Xi Jinping of China], that the UN will do everything possible to help towards the success of the Belt and Road Initiative... the Belt and Road Initiative, with its huge volume of investment, is an opportunity we cannot miss." Guterres will do anything to conceal his own personal financing link to UN briber CEFC China Energy, through Gulbenkian Foundation whose payments to him he omitted from his public financial disclosure covering 2016.  From Guterres's April 26 singing for supper speech: "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. 

 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' 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?  China - and Guterres - would say so, then bluewash their abuse.

  In her lifetime ban letter, outgoing USG Alison 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.

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