Ban
Ki-moon's
UNCA Takes
Mocking of
Sexual
Harassment to
New Low, Anti
Free Press
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
February 13 –
While the UN
and Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon
celebrate
“World Radio
Day,” Ban's
main and only
interlocutor
on media
issues is
engaged not
only in
tearing down
flyers calling
for fairer
access to the
UN, but sinks
lower into
mocking an
alleged victim
of sexual
harassment.
Last
week Inner
City Press
reported how
this UN
Correspondents
Association,
increasingly
known as the
UN's
Censorship
Alliance after
several of its
leaders spent
months trying
to get the
investigative
Press thrown
out of the UN,
used a counterfeit
social media
account
to mock
a reporter who
alleged sexual
harassment.
Click here for
that
story.
Now
the campaign
has switched
to a second
anonymous
social media
account,
alleging that
the Free
UN Coalition
for Access which
began in
December 2012
to challenge
UNCA's archaic
and
ineffective
monopoly on
press comfort
issues at the
UN, wishes to
charge money
to investigate
the
harassment.
This
followed
attempts in
the UNCA
Executive
Committee in
2012 to say
Inner City
Press received
terrorist
funding,
leading to
death threats
from Sri
Lanka.
How
can this UNCA
partner with
the UN, even
be a party to
the UN's Media
Access
Guidelines?
FUNCA's
current flyer
questions
those
Guidelines,
and UNCA being
a party. Each
day, the UNCA
leaders tear
the flyers
down. They
were joined in
this by a UN
staffer;
witnessed
tearing
down flyers,
for example,
was Tim
Witcher of
AFP,
now standing
for
Anti Free
Press.
The
approach of
UNCA first
vice president
Louis
Charbonneau of
Reuters?
He was
witnessed
urging the UN
to charge
money for a
new paint job.
This is
Reuters'
approach to
free speech?
Charbonneau in
2012 filed
his
own stealth
complaint with
the UN
against Inner
City Press,
then
supported
Voice
of America's
complaint
to the UN.
When
this was
exposed by
documents
obtained under
the Freedom of
Information
Act,
Charbonneau
offered no
explanation.
Rather he
tears
down flyers
and urges the
UN to adopt
petty
bureaucratic
rules to
limit speech.
All
of this takes
place under an
ostensibly
“new”
president of
UNCA,
Pamela Falk of
CBS, elected
without any
competition
and nominated
by
her
predecessor.
A flyer
highlight her
attempt in a
January 24
letter
to the UN to
limit the
existing right
of
non-resident
correspondents
to access to
the so-called
Delegates'
Lounge, posted
with
highlighting
next to her
office door,
was torn down
on February
13.
Rather
than
address the
daily new lows
under her UNCA
tenure, Falk
has
reportedly
criticized
FUNCA for not
“walking out”
with the
alleged
victim of
sexual
harassment --
this from the
president of
an
organization
which in 2012
tried to get
Inner City
Press to "walk
out" of the UN
forever.
Falk has also
"offered" or
arranged to
accept from
the UN a
charade of
free
speech: that
her UNCA
maintain a
glassed in
bulletin board
to display
her letters -
two, so far -
while
belatedly
offering an
“open
access” board
for all other
journalists.
But
since her UNCA
insiders have
taken to
defacing FUNCA
flyers and
posting false
ones,
including one
mocking the
alleged victim
of
sexual
harassment, on
Inner City
Press' UN
cubicle door,
the solution
is no solution
at all. It,
like UNCA's
Executive
Committee, is
a
joke.
They
have still provided
no transcript
of their
session with
Ban Ki-moon
on February 7,
even to their
own dues
paying
members. The
photo of
that session
includes 12
UNCA Executive
Committee
members, one
of
whom has
written in to
attempt to
disassociate
himself from
UNCA and
its campaigns;
while that
member did not
answer follow
up questions
sent by FUNCA,
that name is
removed, and
the IDs
scrambled.
They are:
Lou
Charbonneau of
Reuters; Tim
Witcher of
AFP; Ban
Ki-moon,
Pamela S.
Falk of CBS;
Sylviane Zehil
of L'Orient le
Jour; Ali
Barada of
An-Nahar;
Melissa Kent
of CBC;
Kahraman
Halicelik of
Turkish Radio
&
TV; Bouchra
Benyoussef of
Maghreb Arab
Press; Yasuomi
Sawa of Kyodo
News; Masood
Haider of
Dawn; Zhenqiu
Gu of Xinhua;
Stephane
Dujarric
of UN DPI
What
does Ban
Ki-moon think,
and what will
he do, about
these new lows
of
his “partner”
UNCA? Watch
this site.
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