By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, July 10 -- At the UN they purported to speak of “World Trends in Freedom of Expression” on July 9 and launched a 105-page UNESCO report on the topic, which didn't mention particular countries or governments at all. Click here to view the report.

  How can threats to press freedom be assessed, much less combated, if one holds back from naming countries?

  But this is how much of the UN operates. Its in-house UN Correspondents Association, UNCA, promoted the UNESCO event without criticizing or even noting the lack of country-specific information. This was also true of most but not all of UNESCO's panelists who praised the report.

  The new Free UN Coalition for Access, on the other hand, notes as none of UNESCO's panelists did that the head of UNESCO Irina Bokova is campaigning to replace Ban Ki-moon as Secretary General, on the theory that it is the Eastern European Group's turn to hold the post (she is from Bulgaria; Helen Clark of UNDP is also among the candidates, some New Zealand reporting here).

  Of course if you're running for UN Secretary General, it's convenient to omit criticism of any countries or voters in a report on press freedom. But is it credible?

  Also on July 9 at the UN, when Ban Ki-moon held a rare press conference about the Middle East at 4:30 pm, Inner City Press asked Ban for his view of Palestine joining the International Criminal Court -- and audibly thanked back for belatedly taking questions, “on behalf of the Free UN Coalition for Access.”

  But this latter part was omitted from the UN's transcript of the press conference, while a reference to the UN Correspondents Association was left in. Can the UN not handle or respect a more than one-party system? Is the UN's response to simply censor and pretend nothing was even said? Who is responsible for this?

Would the UN censor from its transcript a question about, say, nepotism or corruption? Watch this site.