UNcensored
1-4: Evicted
from the UN's
Glass House
For
Investigative
Reporting
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS,
February 6-10 – From bringing
cholera to Haiti and lying
about it to two
ongoing bribery
cases to dropping the
Saudi-led Coalition from the
United Nations' Children and
Armed Conflict annex for
bombing Yemen, how did the UN
fall so far, so fast? This is
one story,
UNpacked.
"It was
the fifth year of the Syria
war. I'd covered each year of
it from the United Nations,
like Libya and Sri Lanka
before that. This Friday
afternoon, February 19, 2016,
Turkey's threat to intervene
in Syria was on the UN
Security Council's agenda.
From my
long time shared office,
S-303, I watched on in-house
EZTV the Security Council
stakeout until the first
Ambassadors showed up. I
headed down the escalator with
audio recorder and smart phone
ready to live-stream their
answers on Periscope. I had my
questions ready.
I leaned down to
swipe my UN ID card on the
turnstile -- but this time it
didn't work. The UN Security
officer on duty gestured for
me to come over. “I'll let you
through for now but you need
to go talk to MALU. There was
a guy here talking about you.”
MALU was the UN's Media
Accreditation and Liaison
Unit, from which I and other
correspondents had to request
a pass renewal each year. For
me, there had already been
several attempts to “review”
my accreditation -- the phrase
Voice of America used in its request --
or to condition
re-accreditation on more
friendly coverage of the UN.
I thanked the
officer and set up shop in the
Security Council stakeout
area. Once the Syria meeting
began, I went up the steps and
through the glass doors of
MALU's office. The acting head
of the office was in his
cubicle. “Somehow my pass
didn't work,” I told him. “I
want to find out why.”
“I'll look into
it,” he said. "Meet me up at
your office."
When I
went up the escalator I found in
front of the door of my shared
office five UN Security
officers.
“I have a letter for
you,” one said, handing me an
envelope. It had the UN seal on
it.
“I don't have time
for this,” I told him.
“You're not going
to read it? I really think you
should,” he said.
I tore open the
envelope and looked at the letter.
It was signed by Cristina
Gallach, the head of the UN
Department of Public Information
who'd taken over a year ago but
with whom I'd almost never
spoken, other than to question
her about her links to the Ng
Lap Seng UN bribery case.
Some lines jumped out at me: the
incident
of January 29... UN media
accreditation guidelines... turn
in your office key by five
p.m...
“This is bogus, “ I
said. I put the letter
down on the floor and took a
photo of it with my phone. “I'm
going to tweet this b.s. letter
out,” I said, hearing my own
voice quiver. “This lady is out
of her mind.”
“So are you giving
us the key?” an officer asked.
“No,” I said. “I'm
going back down to do my job, to
cover the Syria meeting.”
The first officer told a
second one to follow me
downstairs. From now on I would
have a minder.
And things would soon get worse."
UNcensored 2:
Physically Ousted from UN,
First Amendment Stops at 1st Avenue
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Series started here
UNITED NATIONS,
February 7 – For the Syria
stakeout in front of the UN
Security Council on February
19, 2016, seemingly
my last one, I tried to
blend in. It wasn't easy with
a UN Security officer
following my every move.
But I stood
typing and tweeting, and stepped
up to the stakeout railing each
time someone came to speak on
the microphone. I put two
questions to Turkey's
ambassador, who always traveled
with a bodyguard himself, then
returned to my laptop to
transcribe them.
By then most of the other
reporters had left. A UN
Security supervisor came and and
told me, “So you'll be leaving,
eh?”
“I don't agree with any
of it,” I told him. “But I'm
trying to arrange for a van to
move some of my stuff from my
office. Just the most important
stuff. Not because I accept
being thrown out, but because I
don't trust this place anymore.”
“Alright then,” the
supervisor said. “So you'll get
yourself a van.” He walked
away.
I did send out some
emails, including to Jose Ramos
Horta, who beyond the UN job he
had was a Nobel Peace Prize
winner. I told him I was being
thrown out, and to email
Cristina Gallach, who had signed
the letter.
To my surprise he wrote back
quickly and said he would.
By then two other
UN Security officer came
over. “Look,” one of them
told me, “don't make trouble. I
say this as your friend. They
have fifteen of us on this. So
just pack up and live to fight
another day.”
I nodded. I was wondering
how Gallach could do this, if a
Nobel Peace Prize winner was
asking her about it. Just to be
sure, I plugged in my phone and
put it on the riser next to me,
filming and live streaming the
scene and the replica of
Picasso's Guernica to the side
of the Security Council
stakeout.
Ramos Horta
wrote back, saying that Gallach
told him I would still have the
same access as a reporter, only
not an office anymore. He
forwarded me her response and
said I could use it:
“Dear mr Ramos-Horta,
Many thanks for your message
which allows me to inform you
about the decision I have taken
on the type of accreditation
that Mr Lee has and will have in
the future.
Recently mr Lee openly broke the
rules that guide all the
resident correspondents. After
careful consideration of the
internal report elevated to me,
I decided to continue providing
him with a press pass that
allows him to work without any
impediment at the UN, as the
vast majority of journalists.
What the UN cannot do is to let
him use an space exclusively
for him, after the
mentioned events.
As you can see, mr Lee will have
a valid press card as soon as he
presents himself to the
accreditation premises.
Rest assured that I am the first
person to be interested in
ensuring totally free and safe
reporting from the UN HQ and
about the UN. This is what mr.
Lee will be able to do.”
Just then the Security
supervisor came back, this time
with eight other officers.
“That's it,” the
supervisor said. “Party's over.”
One of the guards grabbed
my phone, yanked it off the wire
and pushed all the buttons,
trying to get it to stop
filming. Video
here.
“Hey don't touch my
phone!” I said.
“It's over,” the
supervisor said. He grabbed the
ID badge around my neck and tore
it off. “You're a trespasser
now. If you resist we'll hand
you over to NYPD.”
“I'm a journalist here
ten years,” I started to say.
“WERE a journalist,” the
supervisor said. “C'mon, we're
leaving.”
Another guard had grabbed
my laptop. “Let me go upstairs
and get my passport,” I said.
“And my coat.”
The guards were
pushing me toward the escalator,
the one heading down, not up.
One flight down in in the lobby
I saw two members of the board
of the United Nations
Correspondents Association,
which I'd quit two years before
after being ordered by the
UN Correspondents
Assocaition's president to
take an article off-line.
“Great job,” I yelled at them.
“You're the UN's Censorship
Alliance.”
“More walking, less
talking,” the supervisor said. I
decided I should at least know
his name. So I asked. Three
times.
“I'm the Deputy Chief,” he
said.
“You're not going to give
your name?” I asked him. “Even
NYPD has to do that.”
He paused. “McNulty,” he
finally said. Audio
here. Then again the
pushing, out onto the traffic
circle, toward the guard booth
at the front which checked the
cars coming into the UN garage.
“You know why they're
doing this,” I said to the
officer next to me, or all the
officers. “It's become of
corruption. A guy's been
indicted for paying bribes in
the UN and when I asked if Ban
Ki-moon's involved, suddenly
he's having you throw me out.”
“Enough, enough,” McNulty
said. We had arrived at the
guard booth, and one of the
guards opened the metal gate out
to First Avenue.
“I'm not leaving without
my phone,” I said. My mind was
swimming.
Audio here.
“We'll give that to you
once you're out,” McNulty said.
And with that, pushed me out the
gate. I saw my backpack thrown
on the ground, with my laptop on
it. Someone handed me my phone
and suddenly the gate was
locked. To the side I saw
the Voice of America which as
they tried
earlier to get me out of the
UN I'd told that to use US
taxpayers' money to try to get
an American investigative
journalist thrown out of the UN
might be a problem.
“That's a threat,” she
told me.
“It's just a statement of
the law,” I'd told her. “It's in
the First Amendment.”
But the First Amendment,
I'd found, ends at First Avenue.
UNcensored
3:
Banned From
All UN
Premises,
Watching Scam
Briefing From
the Park
By
Matthew
Russell Lee,
Series started
here
UNITED NATIONS,
February 8 – After being thrown
out of the UN by eight
Security officers for trying
to cover an event in the UN
Press Briefing Room, I was back on
First Avenue first thing
Monday morning, to try to get
signed into the UN as a guest
by another correspondent.
But at the
door for the pass and sign-in
office, one Security officer
told us he'd been asked to be on
the look-out for just this.
“You can wait inside,”
the guard said. “But I have to
call my supervisor.” It was
nearing 10 am, when the Security
Council meeting would start. I
looked in my notebook for
Spokesman Stephane Dujarric's
phone number and dialed it:
voice mail. I left a
message, I am being blocked from
even entering as a guest.
Then the officer's
supervisor showed up, Matthew
Sullivan was his name. I'd written
about him before, not
unsympathetically, after he got
a rib broken by Turkey's
Erdogan's bodyguards out of
control. (Ban Ki-moon ended up
apologizing to Erdogan for the
incident, and putting Sullivan
on paid leave, another of Ban's
profiles in courage.)
But Sullivan was in a
fighting mood today.
“C'mon Matty,” he told me. “You
know you can't be in here.
You're banned from all UN
premises.” Audio
here.
Actually, I didn't know
that. I told him all I wanted to
do at that point was try to
cover the Security Council
meeting by watching the webcast,
could I do it in here?
“No, you have to
leave,” Sullivan said. Next
thing I knew I was out on First
Avenue again. Yet another UN
correspondent called me and I
told him what was happening.
“I always thought they'd
do this to you,” he said. “I
wonder why it took them so
long.”
I got to the park
on 43rd Street right across from
the UN, Ralph Bunche Park, they
call it, and I set up shop on
the base of a metal monument
there. The UN's wi-fi didn't
even reach out to the street, so
I used my cell phone's hotspot.
I uploaded the audio of Sullivan
saying, “You're banned from all
UN premises;” I tried to listen
to and live-tweet the Security
Council meeting on Syria.
Finally I watched the
day's noon briefing. Dujarric
from his mushroom-like wooden
podium called on a seemingly
eternal United
Nations Correspondents
Association board member,
Masood Haider of Pakistan's
Daily Dawn.
“I want to know about
that blogger Matthew Lee,”
Masood said. “He is spewing all
kinds of allegations on the
Internet, some of them not true.
What is his status?” Video
here.
Dujarric welcomed this
question, this colloquy, and
replied, “Matthew should come
back in and remove his
belongings.” I sat in the
park across the street, now
shouting at my laptop. I was
told I couldn't enter the UN.
How could they use the UN noon
briefing to talk about my
accreditation status, without
any right of reply?
There was, of course,
Twitter and I used it. Soon my
phone was out of power and my
hotspot growing weak. I had to
find another place to work and
headed inland. The public
library on 46th Street had a
second floor with children's
book and some raised tables
looking across the street at a
restaurant called Aretsky's
Patroon. I plugged in my laptop
and kept plugging. This would
not be a short fight, it was
starting to dawn on me. Like
Pakistan's Daily Dawn.
From the public library
branch on 46th Street I started
writing to all the UN officials
I knew. To be continued...
UNcensored
3:
Banned From
All UN
Premises,
Watching Scam
Briefing From
the Park
By
Matthew
Russell Lee,
Series started
here
UNITED NATIONS,
February 8 – After being thrown
out of the UN by eight
Security officers for trying
to cover an event in the UN
Press Briefing Room, I was back on
First Avenue first thing
Monday morning, to try to get
signed into the UN as a guest
by another correspondent.
But at the
door for the pass and sign-in
office, one Security officer
told us he'd been asked to be on
the look-out for just this.
“You can wait inside,”
the guard said. “But I have to
call my supervisor.” It was
nearing 10 am, when the Security
Council meeting would start. I
looked in my notebook for
Spokesman Stephane Dujarric's
phone number and dialed it:
voice mail. I left a
message, I am being blocked from
even entering as a guest.
Then the officer's
supervisor showed up, Matthew
Sullivan was his name. I'd written
about him before, not
unsympathetically, after he got
a rib broken by Turkey's
Erdogan's bodyguards out of
control. (Ban Ki-moon ended up
apologizing to Erdogan for the
incident, and putting Sullivan
on paid leave, another of Ban's
profiles in courage.)
But Sullivan was in a
fighting mood today.
“C'mon Matty,” he told me. “You
know you can't be in here.
You're banned from all UN
premises.” Audio
here.
Actually, I didn't know
that. I told him all I wanted to
do at that point was try to
cover the Security Council
meeting by watching the webcast,
could I do it in here?
“No, you have to
leave,” Sullivan said. Next
thing I knew I was out on First
Avenue again. Yet another UN
correspondent called me and I
told him what was happening.
“I always thought they'd
do this to you,” he said. “I
wonder why it took them so
long.”
I got to the park
on 43rd Street right across from
the UN, Ralph Bunche Park, they
call it, and I set up shop on
the base of a metal monument
there. The UN's wi-fi didn't
even reach out to the street, so
I used my cell phone's hotspot.
I uploaded the audio of Sullivan
saying, “You're banned from all
UN premises;” I tried to listen
to and live-tweet the Security
Council meeting on Syria.
Finally I watched the
day's noon briefing. Dujarric
from his mushroom-like wooden
podium called on a seemingly
eternal United
Nations Correspondents
Association board member,
Masood Haider of Pakistan's
Daily Dawn.
“I want to know about
that blogger Matthew Lee,”
Masood said. “He is spewing all
kinds of allegations on the
Internet, some of them not true.
What is his status?” Video
here.
Dujarric welcomed this
question, this colloquy, and
replied, “Matthew should come
back in and remove his
belongings.” I sat in the
park across the street, now
shouting at my laptop. I was
told I couldn't enter the UN.
How could they use the UN noon
briefing to talk about my
accreditation status, without
any right of reply?
There was, of course,
Twitter and I used it. Soon my
phone was out of power and my
hotspot growing weak. I had to
find another place to work and
headed inland. The public
library on 46th Street had a
second floor with children's
book and some raised tables
looking across the street at a
restaurant called Aretsky's
Patroon. I plugged in my laptop
and kept plugging. This would
not be a short fight, it was
starting to dawn on me. Like
Pakistan's Daily Dawn.
From the public library
branch on 46th Street I started
writing to all the UN officials
I knew. To be continued...
***
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