UN
Guterres To
Serve Remarks
to UNCA
Claiming Event
Open to All
Correspondents,
UNtrue?
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS,
June 22 – How untransparent
and inaccessible is Antonio
Guterres, as UN Secretary
General? The last time he held
a press conference at UN
headquarters was more than
five months ago, on January
16. On that day, Inner
City Press asked
Guterres why he had not acted
on the killings by the
Cameroon government and had
not even started an audit of
the China Energy Fund
Committee UN bribery case in
which CEFC's UN representative
Patrick Ho was and is jailed.
Since then, no action on
Cameroon and still no audit of
CEFC China Energy. On June 22,
Guterres met China's deputy
minister of security while his
spokesman Stephane Dujarric
banned Inner City Press'
live-stream Periscope. (Later
video here).
Now
after five months Guterres
will on June 26 finally hold a
second press conference. But
on the same day, he is also
the guest of honor of the
United Nations Correspondents
Association: “This year marks
UNCA's 70th anniversary,
celebrating seven decades of
journalism committed to
reporting on the UN and its
many causes and objectives
[!]" The Free UN Coalition for
Access questions the propriety
of this explicit focus by the
UN Correspondents Association
on the UN's "causes" rather
than simply covering the UN as
it is; it and corruption are
among the reasons Inner City
Press quit UNCA (and
co-founded FUNCA).
Now FUNCA
has timely sent this: "This is
a timely response to your
statement that 'The event is
open to all UN correspondents,
Please RSVP by FRIDAY, June
22nd to
RSVPUNCAEvents@gmail.com...
Opening Remarks byUN
Secretary-General António
Guterres, 6:00 pm (LOCATION
TBC).' A UN correspondent, by
choice not a member of UNCA,
is hereby timely requesting to
be informed where SG Antonio
Guterres will be making
remarks, and to cover it.
Please confirm receipt and
provide response. On deadline,
thank you in advance." A full
day later, but 5 pm on Friday,
June 22, no answer at all. So
it is not true, the claim that
"the event is open to all
correspondents"? If not, then
what?
Guterres'
holdover spokesman Stephane
Dujarric has continued to
restrict the Press that asks
him the most questions, in
favor of a no-show Egyptian
state media whose
correspondent Sanaa Youssef is
a former president of UNCA and
who hasn't asked the UN a
question in more than a
decade. Now Dujarric has
teamed up with three UNCA
members to try to claim that
covering his privatization of
the UN Press Briefing Room is
somehow inappropriately
aggressive. This is
censorship. We'll have more on
this.
***
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