As
Egypt
Bans Yemen
Nobel Winner,
Will UN Speak
or Silence
as Before?
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
August 4 -- As
drones overfly
Sana'a, Yemeni
Nobel Peace
Prize winner
Tawakkol
Karman has
been banned
from entering
Egypt to
join those who
say they are
protesting a coup
d'etat.
Since
UN Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon with
much fanfare
put Tawakkol
Karmen on his
Post-2015
Development
panel (while
his Secretariat
threatened
the Press for
signing her
into the UN
where she
dared
speak at the
UN Security
Council
stakeout,
click here for
that),
Inner City
Press has
asked Ban's
three
spokespeople
for comment on
her detention.
It
will be, for
the UN, a
gut-check on
the "Arab
Spring." Many
expected Ban
to follow the
African Union
and call the
military
ouster
of elected
president
Morsi a coup.
But Ban did
not.
A
high ranking
UN official,
nonetheless
afraid of
retaliation
for
speaking on
the record,
told Inner
City Press
this silence
harmed
what was left
of the UN's
moral capital,
to call things
by their
name. If the
US called it a
coup,
financing
would be
stopped a
matter
of law. But
why would the
UN follow
suit? How can
the UN now
denounce
other future
coups?
On
the day Inner
City Press
signed
Tawakkol
Karman into
the UN, at her
request, the
Security
Council was
considering
Yemen. She
stepped to
the UNTV
microphone and
spoke; halfway
through the
Council
ambassador
in the lead
(or "with the
pen") on
Yemen, the
UK's Mark
Lyall Grant,
came out and
stood by -
smiling. (The
generally
responsive
Lyall Grant
has also be
asked if the
UK has any
comment.)
But
after the
UN initially
didn't air the
footage of
Tawakkol
Karman
speaking about
Yemen - they
blamed this on
a cut cable
- they told
Inner City
Press its accreditation
was in
jeopardy for
signing her
in.
Now
the same
Department of
Public
Information
says Inner
City Press
accreditation
can be
suspended or
withdrawn for
hanging the
sign of a
new
organization,
the Free
UN Coalition
for Access,
on
the door of
its shared
office.
According to
the UN DPI,
there can be only one
media
organization
in the UN
- one that it uses
for its own
purposes.
One party
systems? No
comment on
coups or
detentions and
banning?
Watch this
site.
Footnote:
On the attack
in Afghanistan
on the Indian
consulate
in Jalalabad
in which at least
12 were killed
including nine
children, the
UK's Mark
Lyall Grant
told Inner
City Press the
UK
is open to the
UNSC
statement,
that Australia
is in the lead
and will
probably look
to the Indian
mission to the
UN for
guidance.
Click here for
that.
, 
