UNITED
NATIONS, April
14 -- After
the Tamil
newspaper
Uthayan in
Kilinochchi
was attacked
on April 3,
and the UN
said nothing,
on April 8
Inner
City Press asked
UN Security
General Ban
Ki-moon's
deputy
spokesman
Eduardo Del
Buey about the
attack:
Inner
City Press: on
Sri Lanka,
last week,
there was an
attack on a
pretty
well-known
newspaper
there,
Uthayan, which
is a Tamil
newspaper, who
is right in
the zone in
which there
was the
so-called
bloodbath on
the beach,
named by John
Holmes at the
time, and I am
wondering,
given the
Secretary-General’s
involvement in
the area, does
he have
any comment on
what seems to
be a direct
attack on an
opposition
newspaper in
the former war
zone that he
visited?
Deputy
Spokesperson
Del Buey:
Well, I don’t
have a comment
on that
particular
attack, but as
you know, the
Secretary-General’s
position
is quite
clear: all
journalists
must be
allowed to
carry
out their work
free of
violence and
free of
intimidation.
Beyond
the generic
statement,
nothing more
came out of
the UN.
Now
on April 13,
after reports
that access to
Uthayan was
blocked on the
Internet in
Sri Lanka, the
newspaper's
headquarters
in Jaffna has
been torched
by arsonists
equipped with
automatic
weapons.
Way
to speak up,
Ban Ki-moon.
His
interlocutors
in the Sri
Lankan
government
have now
claimed that
the attacks
are only to
tarnish the
image of the
government.
Kind of like
the bloodbath
on the beach?
Footnote:
at
a much lower
level, inside
the UN itself
on March 18,
Ban
Ki-moon's
Department of
“Public
Information”
entered Inner
City
Press' office
without notice
or consent,
then allowed
others in,
rifled through
papers and
took
photographs
including of
Inner City
Press' desk
and bookshelf.
Post-raid
video here.
Right
after Ban's
spokesman was
asked by
BuzzFeed.com
about the
raid,
suddenly the photos
were leaked to
BuzzFeed
through an
anonymous
“Concerned UN
Reporter”
e-mail address.
Inner
City Press and
the new Free
UN Coalition
for Access
have asked
repeatedly how
this happened,
who
was let in,
why this
year's
president of
the UN
Correspondents
Association,
Pamela Falk of
CBS, was
allowed to
take pictures.
No answers,
only legal threats
to Inner City
Press. This
is how it
works, in
this UN. Watch
this site.
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