At
UN,
Doubts on
Journalist
Protection
from Darfur to
Prageeth, As
Sarkozy Sues?
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
May 3 -- There
was much talk
at the UN
Thursday about
protecting
journalists,
but a seeming
lack of
action, from
UN
Peacekeeping
mission like
that in Darfur
actively
undermining
media
Khartoum
doesn't like
to Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon not
following
up on
petitions
about
disappeared
journalists
like Prageeth
Eknelygoda in
Sri Lanka.
At
a French and
Greek
sponsored
event on the
fifth
anniversary of
Security
Council
Resolution
1738 regarding
the protection
of journalists
in armed
conflict,
Inner City
Press asked
without answer
about
Prageeth, and
about the
UNAMID mission
and its stance
on Radio
Dabanga.
The Sri Lanka
and Prageeth
question, even
now in the
news, was not
answered by
anyone on the
first panel.
Inner
City Press
directed the
Darfur
question to
French Deputy
Martin Briens,
replacing
Permanent
Representative
Gerard Araud
on the panel.
Araud,
it should be
noted, hit a
new low in the
number of open
question and
answer
stakeouts with
journalists
while
President of
the Security
Council in May
2011; his
President
Nicolas
Sarkozy is threatening
to
sue Mediapart
for reporting
on his funding
from Gaddafi.
No amount of
high-life
partying can
legitimately
make up for
this.
Araud's
deputy
Briens did not
answer, on the
World Press
Freedom Day
panel. Finally
the moderator
re-asked
Briens
directly. He
said that the
Security
Council could
cite 1738 more
often, and set
up a
committee.
But
if an envoy
like Ibrahim
Gambari
doesn't like
or protect a
media like
Radio
Dabanga, what
will the
Security
Council or
Secretary
General do?
Ban
Ki-moon, so
beholden to
Sri Lanka's
President
Mahinda
Rajapaksa that
he yelled at
his own staff
in front of
the Sri Lankan
delegation,
seems to have
done nothing
to follow up
on Pragath's
disappearance,
among others.
In
the audience
there was talk
not only of Occupy
Wall Street
but also of a
former UN
press officer,
Kanak Dixit,
who is being
harassed in
Nepal. Ban
Ki-moon was
asked to raise
the issue but
has
not; his focus
in Nepal seems
to be on a
development
called
Lumbini.
Tellingly
in his
recent trip to
Myanmar --
which beyond
domestic
repression
killed a
Japanese photo
journalist in
2007 -- Ban
Ki-moon
boosted a
business which
sells
surveillance
technology,
including to
Gaddafi's
Libya.
Protecting
journalists,
indeed. Watch
this site.
Update
of 6:05 pm --
CPJ raised
NATO's bombing
of Libyan
state
television;
Inner City
Press asked
about Ban
Ki-moon saying
NATO fully
complying with
international
law and the
resolutions of
the Security
Council, which
has refused to
probe the TV
bombing. By
then, France's
Briens had
left the
podium but not
the room. And
so it goes at
the UN.
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