By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, June
24 -- In Sri
Lanka the
Buddhist
extremist
attacks on
Muslims by the
Bodu Bala Sena
in Aluthgama
were first met
with silence
by Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's UN,
despite the
UN's claims of
"Rights Up
Front."
Then after Ban
sent not
Jeffrey Feltman
but his
Assistant
Oscar Fernandez
Taranco, Ban's
spokespeople
have said
nothing about
the visit. On
June 23, Inner
City Press
asked:
Inner
City
Press: I
wanted to ask
— Mr. [Oscar
Fernandez-]Taranco
was in Sri
Lanka.
So one, is he
back?
Two, what does
he have to say
about the
violence that
took
place?
And also, did
he raise
issues with
press freedom,
including
blocking of
websites,
journalists
not allowed to
visit --
Spokesman Stephane
Dujarric:
Let me check…
Inner City
Press:
Can he give us
a briefing
here?
Spokesman
Dujarric:
I haven’t had
a readout
[inaudible] on
his visit, I
will check.
Eighteen
hours later,
nothing. This
is a pattern:
a June
20 written
question to
Dujarric and
his deputy
Farhan Haq
about Ban
Ki-moon
evading
responsibility
for Herve
Ladsous' UN
Peacekeeping
bringing
cholera to
Haiti was
never
answered.
The
Friday before
on June 13
Ban's Deputy Spokesperson
Haq had no
comment on
another
Buddhist
supremacist
initiative, in
Myanmar, to
ban
inter-religious
marriage when
Inner City
Press asked, video here.
In the
UN when Inner
City Press
reported on
the background
to Palitha
Kohona getting
the Rajapaksa
government's
denial of war
crimes, “Lies
Agreed To,”
screened in
the Dag
Hammarjkold
Library
auditorium,
the reaction
from the
then-president
and executive
committee of
the United
Nations
Correspondents
Association
are summarized
here.
In Sri
Lanka now the
Rajapaksa
government blocks
websites it
doesn't like.
The UNCA board
asked that
Inner City
Press articles
be removed
from the
internet. This
was refused.
One UNCA board
member claimed
to Google
that his “for
the record”
complaint to
Dujarric at
the UN trying
to get Inner
City Press
thrown out was
in fact
private and “copyrighted.”
Here is a
response from
the Electronic
Frontier
Foundation.
This got it
banned from
Google's
Search, under
the US Digital
Millennium
Copyright Act,
which
threatens to
be globalized
through the
Trans Pacific
Partnership.
Who said there
is not
censorship in
the UN, and in
the United
States?
Now
the new Free
UN Coalition
for Access
opposes all of
this,
including this
UN's
stonewalling
and selective
answering and
attacks
on media work both
inside the UN
and further
afield.
Watch this
site.
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