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UN GATE / SDNY COURT, April 3 –  Inner City Press on 5 July 2018 was banned from entering the UN, two day after it was physically removed from conducting interviews outside meeting about the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres' $6.7 billion budget.

  Then Guterres' Department of Global Communication, run by Melissa Fleming, issued a letter banning Inner City Press from the UN - for life. With no due process, no right of appeal.  Guterres has put the UN in the US Press Freedom Tracker, here. Guterres' Spokesman Stephane Dujarric falsely promised on camera that he would be answering banned Inner City Press' questions - but see below.

     On April 3 before what would have been another penthouse apartment UN noon briefing by Stephane "French Whine" Dujarric, this more amateurish and shorter than the one before, video here and here, no questions on Taiwan for example, but on April 3 a Guterres set up question propaganda fest here and here falsely claiming credit on Cameroon, Inner City Press submitted yet more questions (blocked by Dujarric's screener Florencia Soto Nino on +1 917 226 7816) including asking the basis on which it continues to be lawlessly banned from entering to ask questions in person. Inner City Press asked:

April 3-1: On the Coronavirus Covid-19, please belatedly provide SG comment and action if any on that President Paul Biya's silence in the face of the coronavirus crisis is causing controversy in Cameroon. Why did Guterres list Cameroon on his April 3 bragging, when Biya's Army continues killing? The inhabitants of Okoyong village in Mamfe, South West region are still mourning the brutal killing of four boys by government soldiers.  Sources say the boys were pulled from a restaurant and killed with live ammunition.? On WHO's Bruce Aylward blatantly avoiding question about Taiwan and virus response, which Inner City Press asked USG Fleming about online on March 28. On the egregious State of Emergency Law which poses a grave threat to human rights in Cambodia? On that in Uganda On March 25, 2020, the government banned public transport and non-food markets. Prior to that it had closed all bars and instituted a mandatory quarantine in hotels for Ugandans returning from high risk countries, for which those in quarantine initially had to pay for. The government has also closed public court hearings.  On March 30, President Yoweri Museveni announced several additional measures, including a nighttime curfew, banning the use of all privately-owned vehicles, and closing shopping malls and non-food stores for 14 days.  The next day, Richard Karemire, the Ugandan army spokesman, announced that the police, the army, and an armed community-policing paramilitary group called the Local Defense Unit (LDU), coordinated by the Ugandan army, would conduct patrols to help enforce the directive. However, security forces have used excessive force, including beating, shooting, and arbitrarily detaining people across the country.  Please immediately state why SG Guterres did not ensure, or apparently even inquire, if UN staff and the families had needed masks before in a publicity stunt giving them away to Penny A and the City's UN office?  Outraged staff have asked banned Inner City Press. And on the March 25 fundraiser, why is there no disclosure of USG Melissa Fleming among the most recent public financial disclosures? Why none for Mark Lowcock? None for Henriette Fore? How can the UN raise money on this opaque basis? Please explain the break down of the March 27 GA/ECOSOC/UNSC meeting livestream, and how questions were selected.  "AGAIN: please immediately state the conditions and mitigation for the lay off of all Delegates Dining Room staff which Inner City Press reported yesterday after being contacted by staff complaining there is no mitigation of economic harm. On Mali, what are the comments and actions if any of SG Guterres on that Mali held its long-delayed parliamentary election on Sunday despite an insurgency in its central and northern regions, concerns about coronavirus and the recent kidnapping of the main opposition leader? On Burundi, what are the comments and action if any of SG Guterres and USG Fleming on that Burundian member of Parliament Anglebert Ngendabanka threatens to physically eliminate (“crush the head” according to his words) journalists from the press? What of that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has not shared with member states information Taiwan has provided on the coronavirus including details on its cases and prevention methods, Taiwan's Foreign Ministry said on Monday (March 30), ratcheting up its complaints?

April 3-1a: On the UN system's development programs, what are the responses of SG Guterres and separately DSF Amina J. Mohammed to the UK DFID letter Inner City Press has published that "UK DFID's Nick Dyer in an April 1 letter to Steiner obtained by Inner City Press:  "Examples of UNDP reform behaviours reported by DFID country included: • UNDP making the transition for RCs challenging – denying the RC access to their vehicles etc; • UNDP Res Reps not engaging effectively in UNSDCF processes; • UNDP making deliberate attempts to undermine other agencies - threatening their space with host Governments; • UNDP senior staff referring to the reforms as a “tick box exercise”; • Senior UNDP staff being vocally sceptical about the reforms; UNDP staff generally projecting a sense of inevitability about reforms rather than enthusiasm, and some bemusement; and • Generally, demonstrating a low level of buy-in to the reforms. We’ve also heard that UNDP has not cooperated as enthusiastically as some other entities with the Business Innovation Group workstreams, in particular on the common fleet management system, and that as a result, this promising workstream is being closed down." 

April 3-1b: What are SG Guterres' comments and actions if any on the indictment of Maduro on drug charges, and again what were Gutterres' discussions with Honduras president JOH, whose brother has been convicted in the SDNY of drug trafficking (sentencing now set April 15 or May 15) and has himself been alleged to be a conspirator? What about the money your office bragged about from Honduras, given the proof JOH took money from El Chapo? Now in April, on Twitter stating that ""Twitter Safety @TwitterSafety We discovered many inauthentic accounts were accessing Twitter from a single IP range in Honduras, and heavily Retweeting the President’s account. We removed 3,104 accounts when it became clear a staffer created the fake accounts on the government’s behalf"?    

April 3-2: On Cameroon, what are the comments or actions if any of SG Guterres after he took credit for one group's ceasefire in Southern Cameroon on (1) the government not being among 52 sign ons, and (2) that Monday, two civilians, a boy and a man were shot at the Mile 12 area in Bamenda by soldiers? On that inhabitants of Okoyong village in Mamfe, South West region are still mourning the brutal killing of four boys by government soldiers.  Sources say the boys were pulled from a restaurant and killed with live ammunition? On that President Paul Biya's silence in the face of the coronavirus crisis is causing controversy in Cameroon. It was his Prime Minister who announced measures to combat the epidemic. Mr. Biya has not yet spoken, unlike his counterparts in neighboring countries? on the holding of an "election" in NW and SW during this Coronavirus crisis? Why did Guterres "take note" of Guinea vote, but not Cameroon? What is his comment and action if any on that the personal engagement of President Paul Biya in the fight against COVID-19 has been questioned by most Cameroonians who say he has been very absent compared to his colleagues accross the Continent. President Paul Biya apart from a recent tweet during which he called on citizens to be calm and respect government’s measures, has neither addressed the issue nor disbursed financial assistance promised by government to effectively fight COVID-19. Yet again,  immediately disclose whose question was cited by Stephane Dujarric in the in-person noon briefing as having been asked triggering condemnation of one-death bombing attributed, rightly or wrongly, to non Paul Biya forces? How is your approach not propaganda, censorship and a cover up of the Biya's government's mass killings?

April 3-2a: On China, what are the comments and actions if any of SG Guterres on that three Chinese human rights lawyers, Mr. Ding Jiaxi, Mr. Zhang Zhongshun and Mr. Dai Zhenya, have been held by authorities in a form of detention called Residential Surveillance in a Designated Location (RSDL) since they were arrested for attending an informal weekend gathering in the city of Xiamen. At the gathering, they discussed the situation of civil society and politics in China with other lawyers and activists 

April 2-3: On Guinea, what are the comments and actions of SG Guterres, beyond "taking note," on that opposition activists in Guinea say at least 10 people have been killed in street clashes during Sunday's controversial referendum on a new constitution. 

April 2-3a: On the DRC and total lack of trust in the UN, what are the comment and actions of SG Guterres on reports that "civilians in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are resisting the deployment of United Nations peacekeepers despite imminent attacks by rebel groups in the region.  The resistance is the aftermath of a fallout between residents in the town of Beni and the UN Mission for Stabilisation in the Congo (MONUSCO).  This after residents accused the peacekeepers of failure to protect them from repeated attacks" 

April 2-3b: On Qatar, what are the comments and actions if any of SG Guterres on that nine migrant labourers working on the stadiums for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar died in 2019, the “supreme committee” organising the event has announced, bringing the number of deaths on World Cup projects to 34

April 2-4: On UN bribery, again, what are the comments or actions if any of SG Guterres on the March 11 appellate argument by convicted UN briber Patrick Ho of CEFC China Energy in the 2d Circuit Court of Appeals? Why has SG Guterres not amended his disclosure covering 2016 which omit payments from Gulbenkian Foundation which tried to sell its oil company to CEFC? Separately, again, why is there no disclosure of USG Melissa Fleming among the most recent public financial disclosures? Why none for Mark Lowcock? None for Henriette Fore? How can the UN raise money on this opaque basis? 

April 2-5: On corruption and Angola, on which you refused to answer yesterday, what are the comments and actions if any of SG Guterres on the Luanda Leaks exposure of Isabel dos Santos of Angola, and as Inner City Press has repeatedly asked, what are his comments and action on the repeated retweeting of Isabel dos Santos' denials by his close staffer Aguinaldo Baptista? After, for example, exposure of the corrupt urban development project near Luanda for which some 3,000 families were driven from their homes to make way for the development? And now after The Portuguese bank EuroBic has announced it will end its business relationship with Africa's richest woman, Isabel dos Santos. 

April 2-6: Immediately describe the role of Angola and the dos Santos family in the campaign of Antonio Guterres to become UNSG.

April 2-7: On UN sexual exploitation and abuse - alleged - as Inner City Press requested before noon briefing on March 9, immediately provide all if-asked / further information immediately provide the if-asked information about the new sex abuse cases data dumped at 11 am on March 9, involving sexual abuse by peacekeeper from Cameroon in CAR, Pakistan in Darfur, Tanzania in DRC,  and still UN rape in DRC by Guatemala "peacekeeper," and abuse by Senegal in Haiti, and Gabon and Mauritania in CAR, etc and as Inner City Press asked in writing in 2019 without response, the if-asked information for the report of UN rape in Darfur data dumped to Conduct and Discipline website on the morning of January 17 and the "if asked" information about the two new cases of sexual exploitation in CAR by Cameroonian UN "Police" that were put online after 5 pm on December 30 (a day when you refused to answer 7 questions including on previous UN rapes), and the (Dec 19) rape case by a UN Volunteer in DRC in June 2019 - what nationality? What's been done for the victim(s)? and the Dec 9 sex abuse cases in CAR by Gabon, DRC and Morocco UN "peacekeepers, and the Dec g  about the Office of the Special Envoy for the Sahel, and the two more November 26, 3 pm cases of sexual exploitation in CAR by Cameroon troops in September 2019 (!)

April 2-8: On SG Guterres' Town Hall in Geneva, on which you refused Inner City Press' Dec 20 question, what is your summary of what SG Guterres said given that Inner City Press has now publishing more of it? Please explain SG Guterres' statement that interns should not (ever) be paid, and how this is not create unfair advantage for the most affluent?

April 2-9: As previously and repeated asked, where has UNSG Antonio Guterres been for the past week(s), and how much public money has he spent? Is he going directly to and from Pakistan? Previously from Addis? Or any stop overs? At what cost? Now, immediately disclose any and all costs to the UN including UN Security on the New York trip by Catarina Vaz Pinto Guterres on February 27 - March 1 (or longer). 

April 3-10: On press freedom and COVID-19 and Hong Kong / China, what are the comments and actions if any of SG Guterres and separately USG Melissa Fleming on that  "Hong Kong’s government said public broadcaster RTHK breached its charter by asking the World Health Organization about Taiwan’s membership, a move democracy advocates criticized as a new government effort to muzzle the press.  The Commerce and Economic Development Bureau said Thursday that Radio Television Hong Kong’s interview with WHO official Bruce Aylward violated the principle that Taiwan belongs to “one China.” A now-viral video of Aylward’s awkward exchange with the RTHK presenter put renewed focus on China’s efforts to prevent Taiwan from cooperating with the global health agency during the pandemic.   ADVERTISING   “The secretary holds the view that the presentation in that episode of the aforesaid program has breached the one-China principle and the purposes and mission of RTHK as a public service broadcaster as specified in the charter,” the bureau said, referring to Commerce Secretary Edward Yau. “It is common knowledge that the WHO membership is based on sovereign states. RTHK, as a government department and a public service broadcaster, should have proper understanding of the above without any deviation.”  An RTHK spokesperson said the station had reviewed the program and found no violation of its charter. Taiwan was referred to as “a place” in the episode and no stance was taken, the spokesperson said." 

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