In
Syria Open
Meeting ICP Is
Told To Stop
Periscope By
France,
Controls UNTV
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, June
26 -- When
France and
Spain
co-sponsored a
UN Security
Council
session about
Syria in the
“Arria
Formula,”
Inner City
Press went to
cover it and
was told that
the meeting
was open, but
only if it
went in
through the UN
Visitors
Lobby.
And so
it did, being
the first
journalist
(and person)
in the
audience
section of UN
Conference
Room 4. On two
large screens
in the front,
UN envoy
Staffan de
Mistura spoke,
taking a
different
stance than he
had when he
assumed the
position after
Lakhdar
Brahimi
resigned, like
Kofi Annan
before him.
Then a
Human Rights
Watch video
was shown,
with
voice-over.
Three more
journalists
arrived; a
guard came
over to tell
them they
could sit
anywhere,
including
outside of the
audience
section. Then
another UN
official
approached
Inner City
Press.
The UN
official
ordered Inner
City Press to
stop filming
the “open”
meeting, then
demanded that
Inner City
Press erase or
delete the
footage. (It
had, of
course,
already been
live-streamed
and
broadcast).
Inner City
Press asked
the UN's
deputy
spokesperson
Farhan Haq why
at an “open”
meeting a UN
official had
ordered Inner
City Press to
stop filming
or
broadcasting.
Haq said it
was a decision
of the member
states which
organized the
meeting: that
is, France and
Spain.
So when the
Ambassadors of
France and
Spain, along
with three NGO
representatives,
held a
stakeout later
on June 26,
Inner City
Press went to
ask. But there
the UNTV boom
microphone
operator was
ordered by the
spokesman for
the French
Mission to the
UN who to give
the mic to:
Agence France
Presse for a
set-up
question, then
US
Broadcasting
Board of
Governors'
overseen
media, in
Arabic. That
was it.
Inner
City Press
approached
France's
Ambassador,
who said at
least you were
in the room.
But why not
have it on
UNTV, why
order the
Press which
was
broadcasting
it to stop,
and ask to
delete the
footage? We'll
have more on
this.
Footnote: in
the “open” but
unfilmable
meeting, and
at the
stakeout, was
Human Rights
Watch, which
going even
more secretive
will hold a
smaller event
on Yemen, not
on UNTV or in
the UN Press
Briefing Room
but in the
clubhouse of
the UN's
Censorship
Alliance.
We'll have
more on this
as well. Follow @innercitypressFollow @FUNCA_info
, 
