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By Matthew Russell Lee, CJR  Q&A, NY Post

UNITED NATIONS GATE,  February 22 -- Now launched is the Group of Women Leaders for Change and Inclusion - but will they at least demand that UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who took the position many said should have gone to a woman leader, doesn't undeservedly after censorship and corruption take a second term? One participant, Helen Clark, has to her credit criticized UN censorship of the Press under Guterres. But another, list below, played a role in starting the censorship, ousting Inner City Press for three days (Guterres has taken it up to 233 days and counting). This comes as Guterres' UN still engages in doctored recruitments with pre-determined outcomes, and he and his spokesman Stephane Dujarric effectively cover up peacekeepers' rapes by refusing to answer written questions about the cases from Inner City Press they have had roughed up and banned. The Group has said: "In the coming weeks and months, we will speak through different means and publish a series of opinion pieces and essays in publications around the world that draw on our diverse – and yet shared – experiences and perspectives as women leaders in our respective fields. It is our hope that this compilation of work will serve not only to impart insights on the importance of women as multilateral actors, but also to be a call to action to the women leaders and advocates of tomorrow. The space that we collectively occupy as women leaders in our fields across the public, private, and civil society spheres was not opened up easily and can never be taken for granted. It is the result of the sacrifices and struggles, of generations of women. Political forces today threaten to erode the progress that we have made at both the national level and through landmark global agendas. Whether those forces succeed will depend on whether the women leaders and advocates of today and tomorrow and all who stand with them recognize the urgency and peril but also the opportunity of this current moment and act accordingly. Signed by: Shamshad Akhtar Amat Alsoswa  Valerie Amos Zainab Bangura Catherine Bertini Irina Bokova Gina Casar Margaret Chan Helen Clark Radhika Coomaraswamy Ertharin Cousin Christiana Figueres Louise Frechette Cristina Gallach Rebeca Grynspan Noeleen Heyzer Elisabeth Lindenmayer Susana Malcorra Aïchatou Mindaoudou Flavia Pansieri Navi Pillay Mary Robinson Josette Sheeran Fatiah Serour Ann Veneman Sahle-Work Zewde." We'll have more on this. As Inner City Press moved forward with its investigative reporting about the UN including its  Secretary General Antonio Guterres, his spokesman Stephane Dujarric on 20 June 2018 said that “things will soon be getting worse” for Inner City Press' reporter. Inner City Press has now been banned from the UN for 138 days and Dujarric is providing his and his boss' pretext, as purported background, to some of those asking questions, at least if they come from Europe, see below. But on November 19 Dujarric's former boss at UNDP Helen Clark, answering Inner City Press' question across First Avenue from the UN, pointedly called out "the exclusion of journalists across the road." Vine; longer version here. One might think this would be jarring for Dujarric. One might question if ANY of the other candidates for Secretary General would have been the censor Guterres has been for 138 days, enabled by Dujarric. Inner City Press at noon on November 19, before questioning Clark, asked in writing Guterres and Dujarric: "Now that the Trump Administration has given CNN time (44 hours) to response to their re-suspension, please explain why the UN did not nad has not provided even that amount of time or due process - and immediately provide it, readmitting Inner City Press in the interim to the noon briefing and SG and GA proceedings.

More specifically, please immediately explain how Mr. Dujarric's statement that “press credentials to work at the UN, just like any other institution, is a 'privilege'” is different in any way that the position taken by the Trump Administration in response to the CNN lawsuit. Now that the Federal judiciary has ruled that access to the White House is not, as OSSG Dujarric has claimed, a privilege but a right, this is a FORMAL REQUEST THAT THE SG LIFT MIS-USED LEGAL IMMUNITY IN THIS CASE." Eight hours later, no answer to this or any other question submitted, on DRC, Cameroon, Mali. Guterres' UN is corrupt, and Dujarric is a corrupter. We'll have more on this.

The pretexts of Dujarric for Guterres are lies - now that they are becoming public, the ban is more disgusting and should be UNtenable.

  Two days after Dujarric's threat this reporter was pushed out of the General Assembly lobby during a speech by Guterres by UN Security Lieutenant Ronald E. Dobbins, who did it again more violently on July 3. Since then Inner City Press has been banned from entering the UN, and Guterres even tried to get Inner City Press ousted from Park East Synagogue twenty blocks north of the UN on October 31.

   As many online have questioned this no due process ouster, including from Cameroon, Japan, the UK, Italy and other places in Europe, we can now report that Dujarric while refusing to answer Inner City Press' and a UN Expert's written questions about how to appeal this lifetime ban has reached out to try to quiet some critics.

Tellingly, while he has entirely ignored for example Anglophone Cameroonian critics regardless of how polite or articulate they are, or how many social media followers they have, Dujarric has reached out to European critics. What does he tell them?

  To give the UN its best chance, Inner City Press on the morning of November 8 emailed questions to Guterres, his Deputy Amina Mohammed, Alison Smale, Dujarric and his Deputy Farhan Haq including: "November 8-2: I am informed that the SG's spokesman has selectively contacted those (from Europe) raising questions about the UN 3 July 2018 Press ouster and ban since, including stating that unnamed UN staff members or officials demand a lifetime ban in order to feel “safe.” Given the lack of due process, please name which officials or safe claim to feel unsafe in order to justify censorship, and the basis for your claims. Also, again, answer UNSR David Kaye's and others' question: what is the appeals process for a unilateral no due process physical ouster and banning by the UN of a journalist?" But seven hour later, no answer to any of the questions.

   So, for now due to the UN's constant threat of retaliation even against those it has unilaterally chosen to reach out to with dirt that cannot stand the light of day, this is a composite:

Dujarric claims that Inner City Press made "diplomats" feel unsafe. But he has yet to provide the name of a single diplomat, other than the false Morocco Mission complaint in USG Alison Smale's 17 August 2018 ban letter.

Dujarric claims that his staff didn't like having the movement reported on. This seems to refer to Inner City Press, once it had no office to use, working on a bench in the Secretariat lobby and noting when spokespeople who refused to even acknowledge formal questions went out to lunch. This is not a basis to ban a journalist for life.

Dujarric goes low and says that unnamed female reporters didn't want to see Inner City Press doing stand-up Periscope broadcasts. But the purpose of these -- filming on the fourth floor was permitted without an escort, Inner City Press was told by Media Accreditation -- was to show EMPTY offices, for example Morocco state media, while Inner City Press had nowhere to work. In fact, Inner City Press went out of its way not to speak with or engage in any way with Dujarric's coterie of pro UN correspondents - that why it left the building after work through the garage, which was later used against it.

  There is more, and we will have more. But it is clear these are pretexts. And even if Antonio "The Censor" Guterres, who believes it is impermissible for a journalist to do a critical stand up on the public sidewalk across two lanes of traffic from the $15 million publicly funded mansion he (sometimes) lives in believes these pretexts, an interim solution was and is clear.

 Simply allow Inner City Press in to go to the noon briefing and asked question - unless that is what they are afraid of - and to cover UNSC stakeouts and Budget Committee meetings. It is pathetic that a UN and Secretary General that be focused on "conflict prevention" can't find a solution other than violent ouster and banning for a critical journalist. We'll have more on this.

   This is how any dictatorship would try to justifying physically assaulting and banning a reporter - say that the journalist's reporting made unnamed people feel unsafe in unspecified ways.

  Yes, Inner City Press named UN officials who took money from now convicted briber Ng Lap Seng, including to provide Ng with falsified General Assembly documents. Is it legitimate for Guterres' UN to oust and ban a media for making briber-takers feel unsafe? There are others: the Patrick Ho trial starts this month.

   Even in Dujarric's private outreach to European critics, he has no evidence. This is why he and USG Alison Smale never offered a hearing or opportunity to be heard: there is no evidence, the charges are Trump-ed up. Smale's deputy claims an article shouldn't have been written about him using audio of what he said at an official stake-out position accepted (at least for other media) by Smale's own Department, which called frivolous the Morocco Mission complaint Smale also used....

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