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Hypocrisy From UN Which Bans Press and South Sudan Covid Questions on World Press Freedom Day

By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - The Source

SDNY COURTHOUSE, Nov 27 –    A funny thing happened on the day to World Press Freedom Day 2020.

   One expected at least the yearly tip of the hat to freedom of expression. 

  Instead, this year figures like UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres who has banned Inner City Press which criticized him from entering the UN or now its Zoom rooms for 671 days, are emphasizing a crackdown on "disinformation."  

 This while Guterres and his spokespeople Stephane Dujarric and Melissa Fleming not only ban Press but refuse written questions about, for example, South Sudanese complaints that the UN Mission UNMISS spread COVID-19 there, like the UN spread cholera in Haiti.

   About Haiti, the UN and its then and now spokesman Dujarric lied for at least six years. Was questioning that "disinformation," as Guterres would have you believe now? 

  As Inner City Press has reported for week, first Guterres' representative in South Sudan David Shearer was asked in a Town Hall meeting it got the minutes from about national UN staff being put on a bus without social distance. 

  Guterres, Dujarric and Fleming refuse to asked days of written questions about the transcript. 

  Then UNMISS belatedly admitted it had flown in an international who had COVID-19. But they had neglected to tell the South Sudan government for quite some time, as raised in a petition to Guterres from South Sudanese to which he has yet to respond.

   Then another UN international who was ostensibly under quarantine flew out of the country, triggering a protect from South Sudan's high level task force which in a written order demanded clarification from the World Health Organization. 

 Inner City Press has asked Guterres, his Deputy Amina J. Mohammed and his spokespeople about this repeated, and submitted it in writing to WHO. Nothing. So who is leaving legitimate questions unanswered in the public record?   

  Against this backdrop, what does it mean when for example the French Mission to the UN, which even before Guterres threw Inner City Press out vetoed it continuing on UN Security Council trips to its former colonies, tweets "Disinformation is dangerous. Disinformation kills. Disinformation spreads fast.   WE MUST STOP IT. Let’s promote FACTS. SCIENCE. INFORMATION. #WorldPressFreedomDay"?

The May 4 event will include other hypocrites like High Commissioner for Human Rights Michele Bachelet who did nothing about censorship by Guterres who nominated her, and allowed him to block Inner City Press from her events in the UN. UNESCO Director General Audrey Azoulay has her own corruption scandals, on which Inner City Press has reported.

  But what about the member states who have jumped on the bandwagon of turning even the one day World Press Freedom Day in to a way for governments to crackdown on those whose views or questions are inconvenient?

A fish rots from the head. We'll have more on this. 

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