Amid
UN Censorship US Nikki Haley Is
Petitioned To End Ban on Inner
City Press
By Matthew
Russell Lee, CJR Letter
PFT Q&A
UNITED NATIONS,
September 1 –
Sixty days after Inner City
Press was physically ousted
frm the UN and then subject to
a ongoing ban from entry to
cover the Security Council or
UN noon briefing, Inner City
Press sent a now open letter
to US Ambassador Nikki Haley,
here:
Dear Ambassador Haley:
On this the first
day of your UN Security
Council Presidency, this
concerns the censorship of
Press the UN has engaged in
since July 3.
I was physically
ousted that day by UN Security
while I staked-out a meeting
of the Fifth (Budget)
Committee as I have for a
decade. Right after I spoke to
Cameroon Ambassador Tommo
Monthe, chair of the Fifth
Committee, I was grabbed by Lt
Ronald E. Dobbins and another
officer, shirt torn, laptop
damaged, arm twisted. This was
covered in Fox News, here,
as well as The (UK)
Independent.
On July 5 when I came
to cover the Security Council
meetings on Syria and Yemen, I
was banned from entering UN.
After a no due process review
by the Department of Public
Information's Alison Smale, my
accreditation was “withdrawn”
on August 17, seemingly for
life. The letter is online here,
downloadable with some of my
rebuttal (not heard by Smale
or DPI) here.
I have
raised this verbally to some
in your US Mission to the UN,
including eight days ago to
your spokesman John Degory,
followed up in writing with a
request to be admitted to your
September 4 Program of World
press conference. In your
first such press conference on
3 April 2017, I asked you
about peacekeepers' sexual
abuse and the continuing need
for the Freedom of Information
Act at the UN. Video here.
As
things stand, without any due
process, I am banned from your
press conference -- at which,
for the record, I would like
to ask you about the
Anglophone crisis in Cameroon
which I asked you about on 18
October 2017. Video here.
I am also banned from covering
the General Assembly High
Level week, the deadline for
accreditation for which is
September 5.
I
firmly believe I have a right
to cover this member states'
event, despite what I see as
bias and lawlessness by DPI
and the wider Secretariat.
UN spokesman
Stephane
Dujarric in an
August 27 noon
briefing I was
banned from
attending cut
off a question
about my
ouster, video
here,
insisting that
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?
Why this
5000+ signature
petition?) They
have gotten so petty as to get
UNICEF to block me from a book
event they had invited me to
on September 5. They similarly
got my blocked from a press
conference held outside of the
UN at the Pierre Hotel by the
UN World Intellectual Property
Organization, whose work on
North Korea's cyanide patents
I have also asked you about.
So I am
writing to you, asking for
your intervention at least on
the limited issues of not
being blocked from attending
your September 4 press
conference and relatedly DPI
relenting and not blocking me
from covering the GA High
Level Week, and allowing me to
apply and be accredited on
Sept 5 like thousands of other
correspondents, many state
media of government with
little respect for press
freedom.
Bigger picture, why has the UN
banned me for 60 days and
counting? I think it is
because, more than before,
they cannot or feel they do
not have to put up with
critical questions and
coverage.
Not to be
put too fine a point on it,
but this is NOT a new day at
the UN - or what is new about
it is the willingness to rough
up and journalist and ban its
media for life, with no due
process or appeal. This is not
consistent with the First
Amendment of the US
Constitution (which it is now
clear entirely stops east of
First Avenue) - nor with
Article 19 of the UN Universal
Declaration of Human Rights.
This is an
outrage at the UN that must be
addressed.
Matthew Russell
Lee, InnerCityPress.com
***
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