UNITED
NATIONS, June
14 -- In the
midst of
reducing
media access
to the
Security
Council
and General
Assembly,
the UN
outlawed
fliers which
questioned the
changes in
policy,
posted
by the new Free UN Coalition for Access.
Now the
UN seeks to
ban FUNCA's
name from any
journalist's
office door,
while allowing
at least two
signs of its UN
Censorship
Alliance, UNCA.
Before
putting this
into a
Kafka-esque
rule about
fliers and
where
journalists
can and cannot
work, staff of
the UN
Department of
Public
Information
and scribes
from Agence
France
Presse and
Reuters
simply tore
FUNCA's fliers
down, and in
some cases
defaced and
even
counterfeited
them.
The
rules were
agreed to by
the old UN
Correspondents
Association,
and
now comes the
punchline.
While
UNCA is given
a large office
at the
top of the
escalator on
which two
separate UNCA
signs are
posted, on
June 14 DPI,
contrary to
previous
communication,
told Inner
City
Press which
co-founded
FUNCA that it
cannot display
a simple Free
UN
Coalition for
Access sign on
its door.
UNCA
and DPI,
together the
UN's
Censorship
Alliance, are
essentially
trying to
create a one
party system.
Despite the
fact that UNCA
does
not represent
all UN
resident
correspondents,
and that in
2012 the
UNCA Executive
Committee
devoted most
of its
meetings to
trying to
get Inner City
Press thrown
out of the UN
for articles
it wrote, the
UN now tries
through rules
to outlaw any
other
organization.
DPI
on March 18,
2013 conducted
a
non-consensual
raid of Inner
City
Press' office,
during which
UNCA president
Pamela Falk
took
photographs.
Later Falk
issued a legal
threat through
her
CBSNews.com
e-mail address
demanding the
Press "cease
and desist"
from
even
questioning
for what
purpose she
took the
photos.
On
March 21,
right after
BuzzFeed
called
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
spokesperson
Martin
Nesirky,
photos taken
during the
raid,
including
of Inner City
Press' desk
and bookshelf,
were leaked to
BuzzFeed via
an anonymous
"Concerned UN
Reporter"
e-mail
account. These
photographs
are identical
to ones
e-mailed
around by DPI.
Now,
after close of
business on
Friday, June
14 comes this,
from the UN:
"the posting
of notices
policy does
apply to the
FUNCA sign...
I
am afraid you
will have to
take the sign
down."
While
the UN
Department of
"Public"
Information is
on a witch
hunt about
dissent, it is
not doing its
job.
Long
ago DPI said
that
there would be
intra-UN
telephones to
call the
peacekeeping
missions
in the "focus
booths." But
there are no
phones -- and
no
chairs. Others
complain of
the needlessly
low wall of
cubicles; in
the wall just
above Inner
City Press'
door, and the
FUNCA sign as
issue, there
is a UN
Security
camera.
An
African
photographer
constantly at
the UN is
being told he
should go
through the
metal detector
on each
entrance,
while a
photographer
with AFP, who
rarely comes
to the UN, is
considered a
resident
correspondent,
no metal
detector.
There
is still
no table or
surface to
type on at the
Security
Council, as
existed before
and during the
relocation.
All space
for the public
and press to
view the
General
Assembly has
been
eliminated.
And DPI
is focused
on... banning
fliers and
even the sign
of an
alternative
organization
which
dissents.
Watch this
site.
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