Inner City Press

Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the United Nations to Wall Street to the Inner City

These reports are usually available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis

Google
  Search innercitypress.com Search WWW (censored?)

In Other Media-eg AJE, FP, Georgia, NYT Azerbaijan, CSM Click here to contact us     .

,



Follow us on TWITTER

Home -

These reports are usually available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis

CONTRIBUTE

RSS

ICP on YouTube

BloggingHeads.tv

UN: Sri Lanka

VoA: NYCLU

Google, Asked at UN About Censorship, Moved to Censor the Questioner, Sources Say, Blaming UN - Update - Editorial

Support this work by buying this book

Click on cover for secure site orders

also includes "Toxic Credit in the Global Inner City"
 

 

 


Community
Reinvestment

Bank Beat

Freedom of Information
 

How to Contact Us



For France's Global Anti-Executions Campaign, Fabius Rebuffs Q on Francophony

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 27 -- When French foreign minister Laurent Fabius came to the UN stakeout to promote what he called France's global campaign against the death penalty, one assumed he would take questions other than in French, and that he would explain what France is doing with the group of countries in the so-called Francophonie.

But the first question selected was about Iran, and in French. Then another French journalist was called on, to ask about Japan and its executions.

Inner City Press spoke up, asking "What about the countries in the Francophonie?" But the questioning was pushed elsewhere.

Then France's Permanent Representative Gerard Araud, who several Security Council members tell Inner City Press bragged in closed consultations of being proud to be able to denigrate religion, came in whispered in Fabius' ear.

When Benin's foreign minister Nassirou Bako Arifari finished answering a question, Fabius shook his head and said no, he had to go. He had heard the Francophonie question, but chose not to answer it. And so goes this French government and its global anti death penalty campaign.

Footnote: by contrast, at the very same stakeout area on the very same morning, Inner City Press questions were taken and answered by the foreign ministers of Jordan and Italy, Australia and the Netherlands. The first two professed support for freedom of the press. This French presidency, and particularly its French Mission to the UN, does not seem to share that.

Share |

* * *

These reports are usually also available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis.

Click here for Sept 26, 2011 New Yorker on Inner City Press at UN

Click for  BloggingHeads.tv re Libya, Sri Lanka, UN Corruption

Feedback: Editorial [at] innercitypress.com

UN Office: S-253, UN, NY 10017 USA Tel: 212-963-1439

Reporter's mobile (and weekends): 718-716-3540

Google
  Search innercitypress.com  Search WWW (censored?)

Other, earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.

            Copyright 2006-2012 Inner City Press, Inc. To request reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at] innercitypress.com