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By Matthew Russell Lee, CJR Letter PFT Q&A

UNITED NATIONS GATE, May 24 – The US Secretary of State of Mike Pompeo through spokesperson Morgan Ortagus has today said, "The United States offers its congratulations to Narendra Modi and his National Democratic Alliance on their decisive victory in India’s national elections.  India’s elections are the largest exercise in democracy in human history and serve as an inspiration to democracies and individuals around the world.  We applaud the Indian people for turning out to vote in historic numbers and the Government of India for their exceptional execution of this massive undertaking.  The United States and India enjoy a strong strategic partnership that stands on a foundation of shared values, extensive people-to-people ties, and a commitment to a secure and prosperous Indo-Pacific region.  We look forward to working with the newly elected government on a range of important issues, including expanding economic and energy ties, enhancing defense and security cooperation, countering the threat of terrorism, and enhanced collaboration in space.  We are confident that the strong and upward trajectory of our partnership will continue."

Inner City Press has India, Pakistan and other South Asia questions for the UN regime of Antonio Guterres - but under his new ghoulish  system  of roughing up and banning the Press, now 324 days, and refusing to answer its written questions, the stonewalling face of the UN is that of UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric and Pakistan's Daily Dawn's Masood Haider, classic video here. We'll have more on this. After having covered the UN since 2005 for Inner City Press, and pursued stories of UN under-performance from Sri Lanka to Darfur and Haiti to Yemen and Cameroon, at 4 pm on Friday 17 August 2018 I got a four page letter from Under Secretary General Alison Smale, formerly the New York Times' Berlin bureau chief. We've put the letter on Scribd here, Patreon download here. 

The letter informed me, without a single opportunity to be heard and offer rebuttal, that “your accreditation is hereby withdrawn pursuant to the Guidelines.” It cited what it called three previous warnings. But on further inspection there is no there, there. And Grand Inquisitor Alison Smale didn't even consider, or acknowledge, that Inner City Press had responded to the spurious complaints -- from the Morocco mission to the UN on 17 March 2017 and from DPI Deputy Maher Nasser, who blocks Inner City Press on Twitter, on 20 October 2017.

  Smale's misuse of the Morocco complaint, if not reversed, would set a precedent in that in Guterres' UN member states which don't like a particular journalist can file frivolous complaints and get the journalist banned. On 17 March 2017, after engaging in entirely legal live streaming from the UN Security Council stakeout, Inner City Press received this: "From: Marija D. Rokuiziene
Date: Wed, Mar 22, 2017 at 12:59 PM
Subject: Re: Turkish Lounge
To: Matthew Lee, Inner City Press
Cc: Hua Jiang <jiang1 [at] un.org>, Hak-Fan Lau <lau [at] un.org>, Tal Mekel <mekel [at]un.org>
Dear Matthew,
It was recently brought to our attention by one UN Mission that recording was taking place in a restricted area of the second floor, at the Turkish Lounge near the Security Council.
You were mentioned by name in this regard, and we take the opportunity of this sensitive occurrence to remind you that the Turkish Lounge is not part of the stake out area and is off limits to media unless invited by the delegation, and that filming and/or recording of private conversations is not permitted.
Regards,
Marija D.Rokuiziene
Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit
United Nations - S-248"
 The complaint was entirely false, as Inner City Press immediately pointed out, in writing: "From: Matthew R. Lee
Date: Wed, Mar 22, 2017 at 1:29 PM
Subject: Re: Turkish Lounge - formal response and requests, please confirm receipt
To: "Marija D. Rokuiziene"
Cc: "matthew. lee", Hua Jiang,  Hak-Fan Lau, Tal Mekel
For your information, on Friday March 17 I was in the press area of the UNSC stakeout, after the 3 pm meeting. I took a photograph of the Polisario delegation, with Christopher Ross, going up to the 38th floor.
There were diplomats I recognized to be from the Moroccan Mission sitting in the so-called Turkish Lounge. I did not record any conversation or take any photo of them (although in the past, Moroccan Ambassador Omar Hilale has invited me to photograph him and his associate there).
After I took and tweeted photograph of Polisario and UN official Ross going up, a Moroccan diplomat / associate walked the UN Security officer at the turnstile my pass no longer works on; the officer came over and told me, seemingly apologetically, that the diplomat can said I shouldn't take photographs.
 I said I was within my rights to take photographs from the stakeout, but I nevertheless - in light of DPI's / MALU's previous punative acts with no due process, and ongoing restrictions after more than 1 year - left the UNSC stakout.
I consider this complaint by Morocco to be an attempt to limit coverage of the Western Sahara issue. Given DPI's / MALU's previous actions, if any of this is put in my / Inner City Press' history or file with MALU this must be included to.
This is a formal request to see my / Inner City Press' file. And this is, again, a request to be returned to Inner City Press' long time shared office S-303A, and a statement for the record that Akhbhar al Yom and its correspondent, assigned without tranparency 303-A after DPI's no due process eviction of Inner City Press, do not meet the stated rules of three days a day, have asked no questions, and should be in the bullpen and Inner City Press' office and resident correspondent status restored.
Please confirm receipt and provided the requested information / file as well as the list of those waiting for office space, the prioritization the UN has assigned and the reasons therefor.
Thank you.
Matthew Russell Lee, Esq., Inner City Press
Past (and future) Office at UN: Room S-303, UN HQ, NY NY 10017."  (The list was never provided; Inner City Press' office was given to an Egyptian state media whose essentially retired correspondent, a president of UNCA in 1984, rarely come in and has not asked a question of the UN in a decade.) This came as Morocco Ambassador Omar Hillale has used the Security Council UNTV microphone to berate Inner City Press and me for asking too many questions about this country, its occupation of Western Sahara and mistreatment of the people of the Rif. To allow a bad faith complaint to be used by Guterres' Smale - in bad faith - to then ban the journalist for life is a new low. It calls into question which state(s) Smale and Guterres have taken or encouraged complaints from. Cameroon? France? Smale's bad faith letter ruling must be reversed.

  The latter is equally bad in its way, since a DPI official mis-using his position as Nasser did was the subject of Inner City Press timely request to Smale that she recuse herself (which she refused to do - she has functioned, after all, as Antonio Guterres Global Censor). After receiving via DPI's Tal Mekel at 6 pm on Friday 20 October 2017 a letter clearly drafted by Nasser, Inner City Press immediately published a story about it. The Free UN Coalition for Access, an actual press freedom advocacy group which DPI's Hua Jiang had threatened my accreditation for posting a sign for on my then office door, put out a press release and flier. And on Monday 23 March 17 before 11 am I sent the following to DPI including Smale (who has never responded to one of my more than a dozen e-mails, while openly laughing and socializing with corporate correspondents who are her friends) and to Guterres and his deputy Amina J. Mohammed: "From: Matthew R. Lee
Date: Mon, Oct 23, 2017 at 10:18 AM
Subject: Response to UN to threat to accreditation of Inner City Press, which is retaliatory, vague and contrary to freedom of the press
To: Tal Mekel , SGCentral , amina.mohammed [at] un.org, alison.smale [at] un.org
Cc: nasser [at] un.org, funca, The Free UN Coalition for Access


Dear Mr. Mekel, and those UN officials copied below (SG Guterres, DSG Mohammed, USG Smale, etc) --

The UN threat letter sent to me after 5 pm on Friday, attached, coming as it does as Inner City Press pursues stories not only of UN corruption but, most pressingly, inaction amid mass killings in Cameroon and elsewhere is troubling.

It has the obvious effect of discouraging reporting. For example, while it flatly states that I “breached” a rule during a photo op on the 38th floor, it does not say how, or even what day or which photo op.

The effect is to discourage me from covering any of these photo ops / meetings on the 38th floor, since I have no way of knowing when I will be charged with a violation under which you “may” review my accreditation.

This vagueness is contrary to, for example, the US First Amendment, but also numerous UN-claimed principles of freedom of the press and due process.

As to Mr Nasser's misuse of the DPI / MALU threat process to try to win an argument he escalated on Twitter on October 19, saying I should be less negative about the UN when I noted how many clicks it takes to find sexual abuse and exploitation information on the new DPKO site he promoted - before he blocked me on October 20 -- great outreach there, now communications are broken off -- the audio linked to in the article is from the stakeout area by the Secretariat lobby elevators. It did not violate even this rule that the DPI and DSS mis-negotiated, not with the press corps but a subset of the UN Correspondents Association, whose members by the way do not obtain or even seek prior consent for recording, and membership in which is not and cannot be required to be a resident correspondent.

But to Inner City Press, the UN writes in fine Kafka-esque style: “we would like to remind you that filming and recording on the 38th floor are limited to official photo opportunities, and recording conversations of others in the room is not permitted. It has been brought to our attention that you breached that rule recently. Please kindly take note that any further violation of the guidelines and established journalistic standards could lead to a review of your accreditation status.” When was the breach? If a UN official says or does something embarrassing during a photo op, can the UN review Inner City Press' accreditation?

Your letter unless and until retracted means that publications which even link to audio that one participant in which is embarrassed of can have their accreditations reviewed: for example, if a UN official participating in a meeting on the 38th floor recorded it and, being disgusted by the UN's actions or inaction leaked it to the press, the press could be reviewed for publishing their audio recorded “without consent.”

This is, again, obviously contrary to, for example, the US First Amendment, but also numerous UN-claimed principles of freedom of the press and due process.

The outstanding request, to MALU, USG Smale, SG Guterres and DSG Mohammed, that Inner City Press resident corresponent access and work space S-303 which was wrongful taken without hearing or appeal 20 months ago as I pursued the Ng Lap Seng UN bribery scandal which resulted this summer in six guilty verdicts, is below and incorporated herein by reference and I insist on a response to my two letters to then-new USG Smale in September. I was told there is an awareness of the need to show Inner City Press the “courtesy” of a response, but there has still been none, until the October 20 accreditation threat was the response.

The UN should care about, and not seek to hinder, reporting on for example the killings in Cameroon and even UN corruption. Threats of censorship are not the way to accomplish this. Inner City Press should be restored to its resident correspondent accreditation and shared workspace S-303, both of which were taken 20 months ago in retaliation for covering UN corruption in connection with Ng Lap Seng and, if there is some problem in your view with reporting and broadcasting what UN officials say, rules should be proposed that do not so blatantly violate the very principles of freedom of the press that the UN preaches to others. Inner City Press is more than willing to work in this regard."  So where is that, in Smale's hit job lifetime ban letter? To simply recite complaints, by your own deputy, while ignored the detailed responses that were filed at the time shows bad faith. Smale's letter must be reversed - and more. Watch this site. Inner City Press had informed Smale, and Secretary General Antonio Guterres who is ultimately responsible for this, that Smale must recuse herself.

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