South
Korea Ban DPRK
Tweets, UN
Kirby Calls It
Vibrant,
Censors Speak
from Holy Seat
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
October 29 --
With "human
rights in the
DPRK" the
topic, the UN
press briefing
room was
almost full
Tuesday
afternoon.
But the UN's
"Mister North
Korea" (previously
"Mister
Sri Lanka")
Marzuki
Darusman
was not
present,
having to
return
to his native
Indonesia.
Rather,
the
briefing was
by Michael
Kirby and
Sonja Biserko
of the
Commission
of Inquiry.
Inner City
Press asked
Kirby about South
Korea's
National
Security Act
which
prohibits even
re-tweeting
information
from North
Korea.
Kirby
defended South
Korea as a
"vibrant"
state where
even even
this type of
law is not
really
enforced. He
apparently
took this to
be a question
akin to one he
recounted from
China, about
human rights
in Canada. He
said Australia
too has issues
on economic
migrant on
which the UN
would speak
forthrightly.
Well,
no. Inner City
Press specifically
asked
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
spokesperson's
office for any
Ban comment on
Australia's
out-sourcing
of asylum
seekers, on
which Ban had
taken a
blue-washing
call from
Kevin Rudd.
No Ban comment
ever emerged
on that -- or,
it
seems, on
South Korea's
National
Security Act.
Kirby
has a very
high
impression of
the UN -- he
said the world
has only
gotten better
since the
formation of
the UN in
1945, and that
"no
organ" of the
UN would get
involved in
regime change.
Apparently
he never heard
of Libya.
The
UN moderator
gave the first
question to
the UN
Censorship
Alliance,
UNCA, which
sent a person
who lost
election to
the board.
Kirby
answered, on
camera, that
he had sat in
UNCA seat (and
been thrown
out), that he
didn't know
there was a
"holy seat."
The
second
question went
to an UNCA
board member
-- what can be
done to
North Korea?
-- and so it
proceeded.
When Inner
City Press was
called
on, fifth, it
thanked Kirby
on behalf of
the Free
UN Coalition
for
Access @FUNCA_info and told him as
guest he
should sit
where he
likes, that
there
are not or
should not be
any holy seats
in the UN
press briefing
room.
The
UN moderator
made sure to
give the first
UNCA
questioner the
last
question too,
seemingly so
she could say,
"speaking
again from
holy seat with
its little
sign." Little
indeed. Watch
this
site.
, 
