UN
Censorship
Circus Sees
Reuters
Dissembling, CBS
Clinging to
Seat, VOA
Celebrated?
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, March
4 -- Five days
ago, the UN's
accreditation
boss
Stephane
Dujarric
falsely
claimed
Inner City
Press had
impermissibly
quoted Pamela
Falk of CBS
and Louis
Charbonneau of
Reuters, the
president and
vice president
respectively
of the UN
Correspondents
Association.
Inner
City Press
immediately
contested the
charge,
including
proving that
both were
informed
loudly, “you
are the
record,” and
Falk
replied, “He's
going to write
this up.”
But Dujarric
has not
responded.
Again, the
only
free-press
response to
false claims
and attempts
to censor is
to publish
more about the
topic.
And
so as
projected
today we run another piece
of audio.
Click here
This
one begins
with the “on
the record”
notice and
Falk's “he
will
write this
up,” and ends
with
Charbonneau
making a
tortured
argument that
despite documents
obtained under
the Freedom of
Information,
he wasn't a
part of trying
to throw
Inner City
Press
out of the UN.
Charbonneau
focuses
on a
complaint he
admits he
filed with
Dujarric.
But he does
not answer
about Margaret
Besheer of
Voice of
America's June
18, 2012
email stating
that “my
Reuters
colleague just
told me his
people
are probably
going to go
the same route
-to press UN
to pull Mr.
Lee's UN
accreditation.”
Click here
to view.
Since
Charbonneau
refused to
answer, it's
not possible
to know what
his
argument is.
Did Besheer
lie to her
bosses at VOA,
Kataryna
Lyson,
Sonja Pace and
Steve
Redisch, who
on June 20,
2012 wrote
to Dujarric
asking for
Inner City
Press'
accreditation
to be
reviewed?
Despite
Besheer's
clear role in
trying to get
investigative
Press thrown
out
of the UN, not
only did Dujarric
happy-tweet at
her in
December 2012
-- perhaps to
block notation
of this, Dujarric
has since
tried to
block
Inner City
Press on
Twitter,
strange for an
official of
the
UN's
Department of
“Public”
Information --
in Monday,
March 4,
2013 Besheer
was the
invited
moderators at
a side event
of the
Commission on
the Status of
Women.
Who
gave her this
post? The
event was
French-heavy,
but included
an
Assistant
Secretary
General of UN
Women. Is
censorship,
then,
celebrated at
the UN?
Earlier
Monday
at the UN Falk
took up
position in
the front row
of the UN's
Dag
Hammarskjold
Library
Auditorium,
seemingly for
no other
reason
than to say
her name and
that of CBS
and UNCA in
asking the
first
questions to Russian
Ambassador
Vitaly Churkin
then UN
Women chief
Michele
Bachelet.
While
UNCA has lost
what
legitimacy it
might have had
as a defender
of
journalists by
actively
seeking to get
the
investigative
Press thrown
out of the UN,
Inner City
Press did not
contest either
question
Monday.
In
both instances
it waited
then, when
called on,
before asking
its
questions
on Syria,
Sudan and
rape
in the Congo,
thanked the
speaker
on behalf of
the new Free
UN Coalition
for Access,
launched in
December 2012
to defend the
rights of
journalists to
have due
process
at the UN, and
now proposing
ten initial
reforms to the
UN's rules.
Dujarric
seems
to think if he
sticks to his
false claim
against Inner
City
Press'
February 25
story, the
needed reforms
cannot be
pursued. In
fact, this all
just proves
the point: due
process rules
for
journalists
are absolutely
needed, and
since UNCA is
part of the
problem, the Free UN Coalition for Access will
pursue them.
Watch
this site.
, 
