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

By Matthew Russell Lee, CJR Letter The Hill

UNITED NATIONS GATE, March 29 – Six days after banning Inner City Press for life from the UN, back  on 23 August 2018 UN Global Communicator Alison Smale held a faux press conference from which the Press was banned to announce the UN will spend the public's money in Salt Lake City. Now in March 2019 Smale has gone out to Utah where, beyond Smale's own self serving propaganda, a single article has emerged on "Utah Policy," reporting that "Secretary Smale made her trip to Salt Lake to tour area facilities, visit with conference organizers and become familiar with the city prior to the United Nations event, scheduled for Aug. 26-28. The conference will be based at the Salt Palace Convention Center, but will be a boon for downtown hotels, restaurants and other attractions." But do they know that the UN is covering up for rapes by its peacekeepers, including of children, and refusing now to answer Press questions about the cases? Do they know that Smale, far from promoting transparency in the Organization, has yet to allow any hearing to, nor appeal by, the Press which reports on the UN bribery conviction of Patrick Ho and the China Energy Fund Committee, which has a financial link to her boss Antonio Guterres? Her deputy Maher Nasser, whose false testimony she used to justify her ghoulish lifetime banning order, has named "Maruxa Cardama, Secretary-General of the Partnership on Sustainable, Low Carbon Transport, as Chair of the sixty-eighth United Nations Civil Society Conference that will take place from 26 to 28 August in Salt Lake City, United States." Utah Policy gushed, "It is an extraordinary milestone for Utah to be chosen to host the first U.N. Civil Society Conference held outside of New York,” said Baldomero Lago, chief international officer for Utah Valley University and an official representative of the United Nations." An official representative of the UN? How so? We'll have more on this.

 Back in August 2018 minutes before Smale began, there were three journalists in the UN Press Briefing Room, if you include the personal friend of Smale's she channeled unedited into her banning letter. The room suddenly filled up with non journalists - a supposed no no, but Smale's Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit did not enforce that rule (or, one hopes, lure any unsuspecting correspondent into "behavior" that Smale could uses as a pretext for punishment. Having to cover this from the UN bus stop made it hard to hear, but Smale was seen stepping off the podium before the end. The other speakers seemed fine and we hope to have more on and from them - Smale makes it difficult, with her outright censorship. It was moderated by another of the complainants Smale channeled, Maher Nasser, who blocked Inner City Press on Twitter after it asked about the placement of sexual exploitation and abuse on a Peacekeeping website he was promoting, and about rules. This is today's DPI, and UN. Utah, Smale seems to think, should make her censorship acceptable, she appears to think. There no way to know, because despite Smale's assurance in her no due process banning letter, of the ten questions Inner City Press asked by email on August 23, not a single one was answered, including the reiterated question, "
This is again a request to be informed of the reason on the SG's Public Financial Disclosure page USG Smale is not listed, while Natalia Gherman who was named to her position later than USG Smale is listed and has made public disclosure - and for an explanation why Smale did not recuse herself as was clearly called for from banning me. (There was also August 23-10: In terms of USG Smale's letter banning me for life please state who she says was disparaged, when, and in what medium / in person or not. Please provide the UN's version, and any UN video, of the June 19 private use of briefing room for Al Jazeera and critique afterward. Please immediately provide all UN video of the June 22 ouster and July 3 roughing up and ouster, and the names and nationalities of all involved officers.")
  If Smale doesn't make the minimal public financial disclosure, and it is not explained despite being asked repeatedly after she was accused by whistleblowers in her own Department of diverting funds allocated for Swahili services to English language social media promotion of Antonio Guterres, what about this spending in Salt Lake? Below is from the UN's press release, embargoed until 6 pm when we publish it, fifteen minutes before the press conference regarding which we asked Smale's Department: "request, as a journalist who has covered the UN for 12 years and is still covering it today, to be allowed to attend and ask questions at the 6:15 press conference by USG Smale who never spoke to me once before purporting to ban me for life." While not directly answered, the effect was of course no: more Smale censorship, a Press-less press conference." And this:"The sixty-seventh United Nations Department of Public Information (DPI) / Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) Conference which opened at UN Headquarters on 22 August 2018, concluded this afternoon. At the closing session, NGOs adopted by acclamation an outcome document, “People Centered Multilateralism: A Call to Action” in which they pledge to “uplift those whose human rights are most under threat and to protect our planet by living in harmony with nature.”  The document contains specific commitments made by civil society, as well as calls for UN Member States, multinational corporations and the UN Secretary-General and the UN. "DPI is proud to work closely with civil society to plan this unique event for networking and examining together how the UN and the NGO community can work together solve global problems.  We are heartened to see how strong support is for multilateralism among civil society and how committed they are to partner in the spirit of the UN Charter,” said Ms. Alison Smale, Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications, DPI. The chair of this year’s Conference, Ms. Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of Oxfam International, said, “The outcome document sets us on a path to reimagine multilateralism." At the closing, Under-Secretary General for Global Communications Alison Smale announced that next year Salt Lake City Utah, would host the 68th conference from 26 to 28 August. Mayor Jackie Biskupski of Salt Lake City said, “As a city committed to being inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable, it is an honor to be the first U.S. host city of the UN-DPI Conference,” said Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski. For media inquiries, please contact Mr. Jeff Brez, Chief, NGO Relations, Advocacy and Special Events." Inner City Press, forced in order to continue its UN coverage to stakeout the Delegates Entrance, observed the well groomed Brez leaving the UN at 4 pm - two hours before Smale's Press-less press conference. We'll have more on all this.

Background: 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 August 17 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.

  We'll start with the latter, 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.

***

Feedback: Editorial [at] innercitypress.com

UN Office, past & future?: S-303, UN, NY 10017 USA
For now UNder Guterres: UN Delegates Entrance Gate
and mail: Dag H. Center Box 20047, NY NY 10017 USA

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

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 2006-2019 Inner City Press, Inc. To request reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at] innercitypress.com for