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After
UN Threatens ICP's
Accreditation For Reporting
What Officials Say on
38th Floor,
Spox
Won't Answer
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS,
October 23 – The UN
delivered a threat
to Inner City Press to
“review” it accreditation on
Friday afternoon at 5 pm. The
UN official who signed the letter,
when Inner City Press went to
ask about the undefined
violation of live-streaming
Periscope video at a photo op
by UN Secretary General
Antonio Guterres, had already
left, minutes after sending
the threat. The letter
concluded, "we would like to
remind you that filming and
recording on the 38th floor
are limited to official photo
opportunities, and recording
conversations of others in the
room is not permitted. It has
been brought to our attention
that you breached that rule
recently. Please kindly take
note that any further
violation of the guidelines
and established journalistic
standards could lead to a
review of your accreditation
status." But when was this
violation? On October 23,
Inner City Press asked the UN
Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq,
who refused to answer. From
the UN transcript:
Inner City Press: If it's
permissible to use… to
broadcast, including via live
broadcast, Periscope at photo
ops on the 38th Floor, how
does one prevent capturing the
audio of UN officials who may
speak during the photo op? And
I ask because I received a
threat to my accreditation for
just that. And so I need
know what the rule is. I
went to MALU [Media
Accreditation and Liaison
Unit]. They weren't
there. Mr. [Maher
Nasser] blocks me on
Twitter. So, now I want
to know, how is it possible to
threaten the accreditation of
a media for… like I'm
broadcasting here. If
somebody said something behind
me, is it a violation that
requires review of
accreditation? How does it
work? Spokesman:
Matthew, your issues with
media accreditation need to be
resolved with them, not with
us. Brenden, come on
up." We'll have more on this.
Inner City Press only begins
its Periscope broadcast when
Guterres' aide knocks on his
closed office door to tell him
the visitor is ready. What
could so upset the UN to lead
to this threat?
The recent photo op with the
most ambient noise and chatter
by Guterres and others
involved the swearing in of
three Under Secretaries
General, Vladimir
Voronkov, USG
for
Counter-Terrorism,
Izumi
Nakamitsu,
High
Representative
for
Disarmament,
and Mark
Lowcock,
Emergency
Relief
Coordinator. How
could one
covering this
extended photo
op and censor
out what UN
officials were
audibly
saying?
Periscope here;
Inner City
Press' photos
on Alamy here.
This threat is
to
accreditation
and even short
of that, such
publication at
Alamy: the
message is, you
can be thrown
out or
reviewed for
some undefined,
Kafka-esque
"violation" at
any photo op.
Also present,
representing
the rarely
seen USG
Alison Smale,
was D2 Maher
Nasser, who on
October 19
tweeted at
Inner City Press
to be less
negative about
the UN, then
after
apparently
being
embarrassed by
what he had
said
by the UN Secretariat lobby
stakeout position, misused DPI
to threat Inner City Press'
accreditation then blocked
Inner City Press on Twitter.
This is disgusting. During
another photo op with
Bangladesh's speaker of the
National Parliament, Guterres
forgot to go to shake hands
until reminded, ICP Periscope
here.
Half an hour later, with
Somalia, he forgot again,
captured entirely legally by
Inner City Press, here.
That Periscope video was less
than two minutes long, begun
as Guterres entered the room
(but went to the wrong side of
the table.)
Embarrassment is not a
legitimate justification for
censorship. Before the photo
op with Spain's Secretary of
State, Guterres even after his
door was knocked on delayed.
On the appropriately launched
Periscope - UNTV films even
before the knock of Guterres'
door - there was discussion of
Guterres' reclusiveness and
more. Some here.
So, as one analyst now puts
it, is it Guterres' vanity
that led to the threat? Or
DPI's assumption that he is
vain and needs to be protected
by Kafka-esque threats? We'll
have more on this: given the
intentional vagueness of the
allegation, and that Maher
Nasser now blocks Inner City
Press on Twitter, we have no
choice but to guess which
Periscope drew their wrath and
retaliation. This comes two
days after Inner City Press asked Guterres about the
UN inaction on threatened
genocide in Cameroon, and the
UN claimed
Guterres hadn't heard the
15-second long question.
Recently at a photo op,
Guterres' adviser on Cameroon
Khassim Diagne spoke loudly.
Inner City Press later reported,
based on sourcing, that Diagne
who was previously the
representative to Cameroon for
UNHCR,
the UN refugee agency Guterres
ran, speaks in favor of
Cameroon's government. Is this
letter a response to the
reporting? Is it retaliation?
Is it intimidation to stop
reporting on this threatened
genocide? We can't ask the
complainant, Maher Nasser:
after the threat was
delivered, he blocked Inner
City Pres on Twitter, here.
It also
comes after Alison Smale the
head of the Department of
Public Information which would
“review” Inner City Press'
accreditation has ignored threeseparatepetitions
from Inner City Press in the
six weeks she has been in the
job, urging her to remove
restrictions on Inner City
Press' reporting which hinder
its coverage of the UN's
performance in such crises as
Yemen,
Kenya,
Myanmar,
and the Central African
Republic where Guterres
travels next week, with
Smale's DPI saying its
coverage of the trip will be a
test of its public relations
ability. But the UN official
who triggered the complaint is
Maher Nasser, who filled in
for Smale before she arrived.
His complaint is that audio of
what he said to Inner City
Press as it staked out the
elevators in the UN lobby
openly recording, as it has
for example
with Cameroon's Ambassador
Tommo Monthe, here,
was similarly published.
A UN “Public Information”
official is complaining about
an article, and abusing his
position to threaten to review
Inner City Press'
accreditation. The UN has
previously been called
out for targeting Inner
City Press, and for having no
rules or due process.
But the UN is entirely
UNaccountable, impunity on
censorship as, bigger picture,
on the cholera it brought to
Haiti. And, it seems, Antonio
Guterres has not reformed or
reversed anything. This threat
is from an official involved
in the last round of
retaliation who told Inner
City Press on Twitter to be
less "negative" about the UN -
amid inaction on the mass
killing in Cameroon - and who
allowed pro-UN hecking of
Inner City Press' questions
about the cholera the UN
brought to Haiti and the Ng
Lap Seng /John Ashe UN bribery
scandal which resulted in six
guilty verdicts. We'll have
more on this.
***
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