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As UN Bans Inner City Press E-Asks Spox Haq of New UN Sex Abuses Tiananmen Cameroon Yemen WIPO Charlemagne Costs Europe SG Censorship 500+ UNanswered

By Matthew Russell Lee, CJR Letter PFT Q&A, NY Post

UNITED NATIONS GATE, May 31 – Inner City Press on July 5 was banned from entering the UN, the day after it filed a criminal complaint against UN Security for physically removing it from covering the meeting about the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres' $6.7 billion peacekeeping budget, as witnessed and essentially cheered on by senior UN official Christian Saunders, tearing its reporter's shirt, painfully and intentionally twisting his arm and slamming shut and damaging his laptop. On August 17, Guterres' Global Communicator Alison Smale issued a letter banning Inner City Press from the UN - for life. With no due process. She and Guterres have put the UN in the US Press Freedom Tracker, here. Smale said, again, that the UN would answer Press questions to the Spokesman Stephane Dujarric and his Office; Dujarric said the same on camera. On May 31 more than two hours before the UN noon briefing at which deputy Farhan Haq without answering even Inner City Press UN sex abuse questions corrected himself to say that UN envoy Mladenov has NOT been invited to the Bahrain meeting, Inner City Press submitted 888 questions, including why it continues to be lawlessly banned from entering to ask questions in person: "There are more than 500+ questions UNanswered. And Monday Sept 17, Tuesday Sept 18, Wed Sept 19 and  Thurs and Fri Sept 21, that whole week, no questions answered. Nor Sept 25, nor 28th - nor October 2 nor 3. While appreciating and using what was belatedly sent on May 20 about sexual exploitation allegations and on March 28 in partial request to Inner City Press' questions about the UN bribery sentence of Patrick Ho of CEFC and CEFC's 2018 attempt to buy the oil company of Gulbenkian Foundation which paid the SG, no answers on Dec 17 or 18 or 19 or 20 or 21 - another FIVE days in a row, even as SG's direct conflicts of interest and failure to disclose emerge, and a newest low. No answers on January 30 nor 31 nor February 1 nor 4 nor 5 nor 6 nor 7 nor 11 nor 12 nor 13 nor 14 nor 15 nor 18 nor 19 nor 20 nor 21 nor 22 nor 25 nor 26 nor 27 nor March 1 - 27 (!) And now April 1, 3-30 (one answer in the entire month - corrupt), and now May 1-13, 15-17, 21-30, many questions. No answers at all during those four days of the US v Ho trial showing corruption in the UN says it all. This ban is just censorship - and Inner City Press must be allowed back into the noon briefing to ask its questions in person and follow up on them. 

May 31-1: On UN sexual abuse and exploitation, please immediately provide all if-asked information for new SEA allegation against South African peacekeeper in DRC uploaded just after the noon briefing on May 30, since Inner City Press is banned from entering to ask at noon briefing. Also as requested provide any and all hand up on 1st quarter UN SEA statistics, as Inner City Press requested yesterday. Your failure to respond is in context a cover up: note that the journalist Sidy Djimby Ndao contacted Inner City Press about the Senegal allegation, based not on your hidden and not answered on "disclosures" by InnerCityPress.com. Now the lead Spokesman refuses to answer and explain why the SG does not disclose the nationality of international staff accused of sexual misconduct, and of the April 17 regarding Burundi and South Africa peacekeepers and still the Cameroon troops' rape allegations you have not provide any further information on

May 31-2: On China, what is the SG's belated comment and action if any on that Chinese authorities have detained dozens of people as part of a ramped-up annual crackdown ahead of the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.  Tuesday will mark 30 years since the bloody event, which saw Chinese authorities brutally shut down long running student protests, killing thousands of people in and around the central square in Beijing? 

May 31-3: On China also and now religious freedom, what is the SG's comment and action on reports that in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in western China, Muslim minority detainees in political “re-education” centres have been forced to eat pork, a practice which is expressly forbidden to adherents of Islam. One former inmate at a detention centre, Omir Bekali, said that those in the centres were forced to eat pork 

May 31-4: On UN system (failure in) protection of whistleblowers, beyond the Emma Reilly / press release questions Inner City Press asked you without answer, what is the SG's comment and action if any on that the staff federations have written to the WIPO General Assembly urging it/the UN "1) Take the required action to ensure that the UNOPS EO determination that an investigation  relative to allegations of retaliation against Mr. Lei be conducted by external investigators  without further delay.

May 31-5: On Yemen, please immediately and disclose, in the context of the SG's treatment of Saudi Arabia on Children and Armed Conflict, any transfer of vehicles, particularly but not only armored, by the UN system to the parties / combatants in Yemen. 

May 31-6: On the use of public funds, ONCE AGAIN, given that you've only said SG will "travel on to Aachen in Germany, from 29 to 30 May to receive the International Charlemagne Prize, an honour which has been awarded anually since 1950 for efforts made in the service of European unification.       The Secretary-General will be back in the office on Monday, 3 June" - where will the SG be from May 30 to June 3, separately, at what cost to the public including security costs? Who flew to Germany to witness the award ceremony, why and at what cost? 

May 31-7: On press freedom and Europe, as said in Germany where the SG just went without financial transparency to pick up an award, what is the SG's comment and action on that for example In Poland, journalist Bartosz Wielinski said that the government took control of the country’s state media “which now broadcast pure propaganda”. “ And the private media is under severe political and economical pressure by this government. We struggle with that, we have to restore full freedom of the media soon,” he stressed.  Beata Balogova, a Slovak journalist, said that journalists are working “under more difficult circumstances than ever before”. “We are being verbally attacked by politicians and such attacks tend to lead to more serious attacks. Because these verbal attacks set a certain standard that means it is OK to attack journalists”.  In February last year, Slovak investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kusnirova were murdered. It provoked a wave of anger in the country and throughout Europe, resulting in Prime Minister Robert Fico’s resignation. However, the state of press freedom in the country is still in limbo?  In the UN, what has the accountability been for Lt Ronald E. Dobbins and those those refused on camera to give their names? What is each of yours - particularly the SG's - response to the letter written and sent by Burundi activist Manisha Lievin? To the April 15 letter to the SG, DSG and USG Smale for which receipt has not even been acknowledged, other than a single lawless line from MALU: "Your media accreditation request, with reference no: M66561081, has been declined"? This is a formal request for the UN's explanation of grounds for this denied, and since SGcentral, the SG's chief of staff and Deputy SG and USG Smale haven't even confirmed receipt of the April 15 letter much less responded, for reconsideration. AGAIN, immediately explain how it is legitimate to ban from enter into the UN the media that has been asking about these and other questions, with no hearing or appeal. 

May 30-2: On Cameroon, what is Mr. Guterres' response to this call from Refugees International: "UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres must plan a visit to Cameroon to engage with President Paul Biya on these crucial issues." If Mr. Guterres goes, will it be to accept another golden statue? Again, where IS the golden statute Mr. Guterres accepted in October 2017? 

May 30-3: On South Sudan, AGAIN, please explain the photographs of Guterres' DSRSG Moustapha Soumaré with UNSC sanctioned Malek Reuben Riak on Peacekeepers' Day. How did this happen? Who invited him? For what purpose? What accountability for this will there be?

May 24-2: On China, what is the SG's comment and action if any - including in light of his still undisclosed connection to CEFC China Energy through its bid for Gulbenkian Foundation's oil company, on that Developed and sold by the China Electronics Technology Corporation, a state-run defense manufacturer, the system in Kashgar is on the cutting edge of what has become a flourishing new market for technology that the government can use to monitor and subdue millions of Uighurs and members of other Muslim ethnic groups in Xinjiang?    

May 15-3: On the Public Financial Disclosures for 2017 belatedly published over the weekend of April 27-28, please state why Mohammed Ibn Chambas, like the Executive Secretary of the UN Biodiversity Convention, Cristiana Paşca-Palmer, UNICEF's Henriette Fore, with documented links to ExxonMobil and others, USG Mark Lowcock (undisclosed while the Secretariat's speaker at the UNSC Arria on Cameroon), UNCTAD's Mukhisa Kituyi, UN Women's Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, UNOG chief Michael Moller, UNDP chief Achim Steiner,  Heidi Mendoza, Adama Dieng, UN Security chief Peter Drennan, Rosemary DiCarlo and Nicholas Haysum, is not even on the list. OIOS chief Inga-Britt Ahlenius reported - why not Mendoza? Where IS Mendoza? Isn't it a bad practice for the UN's head (anti) genocide definition official to conceal from the public even cursory financial disclosure? Did DiCarlo decline to make any public disclosure despite being the UN's top political officer? What is the even plausible applicability of this line from SG Guterres' web page: "Please note that given the multi-cultural environment of the UN and the often security sensitive locations where UN staff are either working or come from, full public disclosure may not always be a viable or sensible option for certain staff members"? Why has Guterres changed the previous system in a which a "choosing not to disclose" statement was upload and listed, to one which helps conceal who reports and who does not?  Again, state why considering the UN bribery conviction of Patrick Ho of CEFC, and CEFC's attempt to purchase the oil company of Gulbenkian Foundation which paid Mr. Guterres in 2016 was omitted from his online public financial disclosure covering 2016, and why Guterres has not even started an audit of CEFC in the UN. 

More here.

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