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By Matthew Russell Lee, CJR Scope PFTracker

UNITED NATIONS GATE, January 17 – While the UN of Secretary General Antonio Guterres refuses to answer questions about its actual spending and work, whether Guterres' sixteen flights to his home in Lisbon on the public dime or sexual abuse by Cameroon peacekeepers in CAR, it churns out statements on conflicts the UN has little impact on, claiming credit for any progress. So it was on 17 January 2019, when the UN put out this: "The Secretary-General welcomes the meeting between the Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan Elmar Mammadyarov and the Acting Foreign Minister of Armenia Zohrab Mnatsakanyan held on 16 January in Paris under the auspices of the Co-Chairs of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group.     The Secretary-General appreciates the continued commitment of the sides to finding a negotiated and peaceful solution to the long-standing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and particularly welcomed the Ministers’ agreement on the need to take concrete measures to prepare the populations for peace.     The Secretary-General reiterates the full support of the United Nations for the important mediation efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group.     Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesman for the Secretary-General  New York, 17 January 2019" This UN Spokesman Dujarric who has put Inner City Press on his UNdisclosed banned from the UN list along with "political activists," here, blocks Inner City Press on Twitter. And now for four work days in a row Dujarric has refused to answer a single one of Inner City Press' written questions, on Cameroon and Sri Lanka and Sudan and Thailand and DRC and Uganda and Bangladesh and UN corruption, including Guterres' omitting from his financial disclosure the Gulbenkian Foundation which tried to sell its oil coming to China Energy Fund Committee. No answers, even as Dujarric tweets about an expensive restaurant near him on the Upper East Side, with a menu including: Duck Confit notre facon $28.50, Sauteed Calf's Liver shallot sauce $30; Boeuf Bourguignon $28.50; Brook Trout grilled or sauteed; sirloin $44." Bon appetit! The refusal to answer is despite three promises by Guterres' Global Communicator Alison Smale that there would be answers. And his own statement that "we continue to answer Mr. Lee's questions," here. Dujarric, the record shows, is a long term censor. While claiming to the Colombia Journalism Review and in more detail in emails to Inner City Press supporters which we have yet to publish that the basis for excluding Inner City Press is "behavior," for years Dujarric harassed and tried to intimidate Inner City Press about content. Once when in charge of media accreditation he ordered Inner City Press to stop referring in writing to then UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous as "the drone." That was pure content. Likewise when Dujarric summoned Inner City Press to berate it about using a hashtag, #WW2. Is that behavior? Here's video of the day Dujarric returned to the Briefing Room, after a stint that included sleeping open mouthed in a room under the UN library; he promised to answer "your" questions then gestured at the room much more full that he has it today. Video here. Dujarric for years has wanted to censor - and it was the arrival as SG of corrupt censor Antonio Guterres which turned him loose. Soon Dujarric was arbitrarily banning Inner City Press from photo ops on the 38th floor, not for behavior but for reporting on them. He is everything that is wrong with the UN, selectively serving Gulf state media and censoring independent Press, now no answers for three days. We'll have more, much more on this, as long as it takes. On 24 October 2018 one of Dujarric's friendly interlocutors, UN Security Inspector Matthew Sullivan - who has called Dujarric a great man while also calling US Senator Elizabeth Warren "Jokeahontas," here, blocked Inner City Press from an event on Burundi and Cameroon, video here. On December 18 when Inner City Press was barred again, from a UN Human Rights event it was invited to, Under Secretary General Alison Smale told Inner City Press that the bar is the decision of UN Security. Is that the reclusive USG Peter Drennan, who tried to retaliate after Inner City Press published an internal DSS email about how he buried a threat against Guterres' opponent Irina Bokova? Or does it also stretch down to Sullivan and others, some as yet unnamed? The fact that Antonio Guterres uses these to do his dirty work makes him no better than the dictators he (sometimes) purports to criticize. On December 17 and 18 Dujarric did not answer a single one of Inner City Press' questions about conflicts Guterres pretends to care about: Sri Lanka, Somalia, Nigeria - forget Cameroon. We'll have more on this. Is the UN faux progressive, nasty nativist, or both / neither, only united in abusing its power? Sullivan used UN conference rooms for sneaker related for profit events, which Dujarric and his deputy defended. Sullivan, in turn, on 25 June 2018, three days after his underling Lt Ronald E Dobbins carried out Dujarric's and Al Jazeera's threat and had Inner City Press physically outsted, wrote "Stephane is a great man." We'll have more on this. Inner City Press asked Dujarric, "please explain how a UN spokesperson can legitimately block on Twitter a media which covers the UN, when he is posting UN information produced with public funds." While leaving questions about abuses in South Sudan and Egypt unanswer, Dujarric on his own blocking of Inner City Press replied, "As for Twitter, you are not blocked from the UN Spokesman’s account, the SG’s official account or the UN’s main account. You are most welcome to continue to follow those accounts and interact with them." Of course, that wasn't the question - it's about blocking critical media from information for which the public is paying, about UNGA speeches, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio and his officials, France, trips paid for by the public. We're informed by disgusted sources that Dujarric who played a role in having Inner City Press roughed up by UN Security this summer is now tweeting, regarding litigation among the 1970s band Fleetwood Mac, "Seriously? Could this world be anymore divided?" - this as he has the Press roughed up and defends it. And the lone Like of this effusion is from... a senior UN Security official. We'll have more on this. See photograph here as of October 1, three days after Dujarric bragged on camera that he is answering Inner City Press' electronic questions incoming on Cameroon and corruption after having it roughed up in and banned from the UN and his noon briefings now for 90 days. Cameroon's 36 year ruler Paul Biya blocked Inner City Press on Twitter, here. Now people who read our first October 1 story tell us that Dujarric, while blocking Inner City Press and refusing for weeks to answer its question about whether his boss Antonio Guterres, supposedly committed to fighting sexual harassment, had even responded to Prashanti Tiwari's letter -- Dujarric follows / monitors / trolls Prashanti. So too a number of Cameroon activists. This is how low the UN has sunk - it refuses to respond to its victims but tracks them. For what? We'll have more on this. How can the spokesman for UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres not only have physically blocked the media which covers Guterres most closely, but also censor it online contrary to Article 19 of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights? This is a story of Dujarric, and thus of Guterres. 

  On 17 August 2018, after already having suspended Inner City Press' access to the UN for 45 days, Guterres' Under Secretary for Global Communications Alison Smale issued a letter banning Inner City Press for life. The letter accuses Inner City Press - without providing any opportunity to be heard or to rebut - of “conduct on United Nations premises toward other accredited UN correspondents and media outlets including videos / live broadcasts using profanities and derogatory assertions toward them without due regard to their dignity, privacy and integrity, in violations of the Guidelines.” Pg 3 (iv).

   This is a reference to Inner City Press, finding that Guterres' Spokesman Dujarric was giving a  private press briefing in the UN Press Briefing Room on June 19 on a topic it had asked about, Guterres' response to the US dropping out of the UN Human Rights Council. In the hallway, after having to get one of Smale's minders to even try to find out what was being said in the Press Briefing Room which is suppose to be open to all journalists, Inner City Press called the process a “sleazefest.”

  The reference was to Dujarric, using responses to other journalists' questions as an exclusive reward to favored pro-UN outlets. It is media critique and it is disgusting that Dujarric and Smale, for Guterres and it seems Al Jazeera, would move to ban Inner City Press for life for it.

  Notably, the US Press Freedom Tracker, belatedly reporting on Guterres' UN crusade against Inner City Press, recounted from 2016 that “There is no love lost between Lee and UNCA. Lee joined UNCA shortly after he began covering the UN in 2005, but left the association on bad terms in 2012 after reporting on a potential conflict of interest involving UNCA’s then-president. [Giampaolo Pioli renting one of his apartments to Palitha Kohona then later unilaterally granting him, as Sri Lanka's Ambassador, an UNCA screening of a war crimes denial film.] The UNCA meeting was held on January 29, 2016, in the UN media briefing room, which is open to all accredited journalists at the United Nations. Although UNCA wanted to use the briefing room to hold a members-only meeting, Lee insisted that he had the right to stay in the briefing room and even to livestream the meeting. UNCA complained to UN staff, who eventually cajoled Lee to leave.In the aftermath of that incident, the UN stripped Lee of his 'resident correspondent' status, making him a non-resident correspondent. Lee lost his office and his carte blanche access to the UN headquarters building.”

  The UN Press Briefing Room is supposed to be “open to all accredited journalists at the UN.” But at least two times, Dujarric has not followed this, and both times Inner City Press has contested it. Today's UN is a racket, or  sleazefest: if one stands up to Guterres' Dujarric and the media given an exclusive for Guterres' election, Al Jazeera, first you get evicted from your office, than banned for life. A sleazefest indeed.

   As Inner City Press' Periscope, here, clearly shows, it did utter the F word until it was in the sound proofed focus booth. Dujarric and the Al Jazeera trio only heard it later, on re-broadcast. To go looking to feel insulted or even harassed is pathetic. It is, in fact, censorship.

  After Dujarric misrepresented the incident to the Columbia Journalism Review, Inner City Press reached out to a range of Al Jazeera correspondents, many of whom follow Inner City Press on Twitter and use its information. Despite the slogan “Journalism Is Not A Crime” not a single one has yet responded, even as this trumped up incident has been converted by Smale into a basis to ban Inner City Press for life. Those contacted and not yet responding now despite the lifetime ban include, sadly, Haru Mutasa, Saad Abedine, the genial Gabriel Elizondo, Ragobeere, Kristen Saloomey who was working on the Michael Cohen plea deal on August 21, Simon Tate and Gladys Njoroge. Those responsible on June 19 were James Bays and Whitney Hurst, now for Inner City Press banned from 49 days, briefing, and prospectively the UNGA high level week. Journalism is not a crime? And in terms of “without due regard to their dignity, privacy and integrity” check out the UNCA “leaders” on August 20 at the first Dujarric briefing after Smale's lifetime ban on Inner City Press laughing at about it, in a briefing Inner City Press was prohibited from attending and asking questions at. We'll have more on this.Does the UN use its partners in state media including from the Gulf to justify its attacks and banning of the critical Press, or does the UN do it for them? This is the question about and to Al Jazeera. Two weeks after banning Inner City Press from entering the United Nations, which has closely and critically covered for a decade, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres' "Global Communicator" Alison Smale for the first time deigned to explain in writing her basis for the ban, or suspension of privileges, citing Inner City Press' "incivility." This was ghoulish, applied to Inner City Press as its arm was twisted by Guterres' UN Security saying loudly, "I am a journalist!" But now Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric has gone further, in an article published July 30 by the Columbia Journalism Review. Dujarric - who Inner City Press directed to the CJR reporter to - is quoted that " Lee Periscoped while shouting, 'Fuck you!' repeatedly. (Lee says he was complaining that Dujarrac had given the Al Jazeera crew a private interview, and excluded him.) 'He creates an atmosphere of incivility within our working environment,' Dujarrac says." 

That was a lie. Inner City Press on June 19 when Dujarric gave a "private briefing" to Al Jazeera's James Bays and producer Whitney Hurst about Nikki Haley and Mike Pompeo announcing the US pull out from the UN Human Right Council said in the hall that is was a "sleazefest." After closing the door of the focus booth it has been confined to work in for two years by Dujarric, and long after the Al Jazeera trio including James Bayes and Whitney Hurst were done, said on Periscope, F-You. Periscope video - still online during this 27 day "investigation" - here.

So Dujarric is a censor, justifying the beating up and banning of a journalist for something he broadcast in a soundproof booth to his audience. This is disgusting, all the more so because as Inner City Press has reported, Dujarric told an interlocutor on June 20, before the two beat-downs of Inner City Press, that things would be worse for it. Guterres and Dujarric and it seems Smale are.. thugs. But what about Al Jazeera? Inner City Press is informed that its "Diplomatic Editor" James Bays has, in the 30 days Inner City Press has been fully banned from the UN, repeatedly trashed it, despite his profession of "Journalism Is Not A Crime." So Inner City Press wrote to one of his predecessors as AJE UN reporter, Kristen Saloomey, gently asking for advice on how to request equal time on Al Jazeera which previously had Inner City Press on for example on its scoop about the UN's (bogus) plans in Libya, here. But no answer. So Inner City Press moved on by public e-mail to Simon Tate, Haru Mutasa,  Cristina Martinez, Gladys Njoroge, and even ragobeere, alfarram, pricea and gallog, all at aljazeera.net. Tellingly, nothing. No response at all. Journalism is not a crime? It is impossible, more than ever, to get an answer from Dujarric.

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