UN
PGA Post Passes to Ecuador With
2 of First 3 Questions from VOA
Petition to End Censorship
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Exclusive, CJR Letter
PFT, Video
UNITED NATIONS
GATE, September 17 – After Inner
City Press was roughed up by UN
Secretary General Antonio
Guterres' Security on June
22 and July
3, 2018 but before
Guterres' Global Communicator
Alison Smale without any hearing
purported to make it a lifetime
ban on August 17, Inner City
Press wrote
to Miroslav Lajcak as now-gone
President of the General
Assembly, whose term end today.
Lajcak turns over the gavel to
María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés
of Ecuador, who afterward did a
press stakeout - with Inner City
Press banned. While Smale cited
concerns of diplomats, Guterres'
spokesman Dujarric who on August
28 said the ban was based on
creating a hostile environment
for diplomats on September 17
said it was all Guterres'
Secretariat with "no inputs from
any member states." We'll see -
and we'll be writing to María
Fernanda Espinosa Garcés. She
has already been asked, video here with a speech of hers that
Inner City Press was able to
live-stream on Periscope, now
banned from UN. The UN is not
Guterres', Smale's and
Dujarric's kingdom of
censorship. At the stakeout by
María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés,
no fault (yet) of hers, two of
the first three questions were
from Voice of America. That's
not appropriate. María
Fernanda
Espinosa
Garcés
unveiled an
acronym DARE,
on which we'll
have more, and
called the GA
the parliament
of humanity.
So will the
Press be
barred from
the upcoming
level week,
under
ever-shifting
justifications
of censorship?
We'll see.
Lajack's spokesman Brenden
Varma, always more responsive
than Guterres' Stephane
Dujarric, replied that "I
discussed your letter with the
PGA. Please know that he is
personally sympathetic to your
situation. He also continues to
strongly believe that the UN
should be as transparent as
possible and that journalists
should be able to do their work
without hindrance.” But nothing
was done - Lajcak, the head of
the world's legislature, claimed
he had to defer to Guterres and
Smale, even after their
conflicts of interest were
shown. In the case of Smale,
there is a threshold
issue - she has not even
made the UN's bare bones public
financial disclosure, until
other officials like Natalia
Gherman who started after her.
Lajcak has made his one-page
disclosure public today on his
last day: "Assets:
• Residential property, Slovakia
Profits from the sale of
personal property:
Nil
Stock options:
• Nil
Liabilities:
• Mortgage, Tatra Banka,
Slovakia
Loan, State Housing Development
Fund, Slovakia
Other activities:
Legal representative of the
Ministry of Foreign and European
Affairs of the Slovak Republic
at Diplomatic Corps Service,
Slovakia (as part of official
duties as Minister of Foreign
and European Affairs)
Miroslav Lajcák President of the
72nd session of the General
Assembly
Date:17 September 2018." We'll
have more on this. Lajcak is a
nice enough guy, but something
is wrong with a UN system where
no due process banning of an
investigative journalist can
take place with blatant
conflicts of interest and the
person ostensibly in charge of
the world's parliament say he
can do nothing, and does
nothing, banning coverage of
UNGA73. The new PGA's
spokesperson is to be Monica
Grayley. Watch this site.
***
Feedback:
Editorial [at] innercitypress.com
UN Office, past & futuree?: S-303, UN, NY 10017 USA
For now UNder
Guterres: UN Delegates
Entrance Gate
and mail: Dag H.
Center
Box 20047, NY NY 10017 USA
Reporter's mobile (and weekends):
718-716-3540
Other,
earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in
the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
Copyright
2006-2018 Inner City Press, Inc. To request reprint or other
permission, e-contact Editorial [at] innercitypress.com
for
|
,
