Inner City Press


Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the United Nations to Wall Street to the Inner City

These reports are usually available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis


In Other Media-eg New Statesman, AJE, FP, Georgia, NYT Azerbaijan, CSM Click here to contact us     .

,



Follow us on TWITTER

Home -

These reports are usually available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis

CONTRIBUTE

(FP Twitterati 100, 2013)

ICP on YouTube

BloggingHeads.tv
Sept 24, 2013

UN: Sri Lanka

VoA: NYCLU

FOIA Finds  

Google, Asked at UN About Censorship, Moved to Censor the Questioner, Sources Say, Blaming UN - Update - Editorial

Support this work by buying this book

Click on cover for secure site orders

also includes "Toxic Credit in the Global Inner City"
 

 

 


Community
Reinvestment

Bank Beat

Freedom of Information
 

How to Contact Us



Amid UN Free Press Talk, Ban Stays Silent on Zone 9 Bloggers, Kaye at IPI

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 12 -- Amid news that Egypt has released two Al Jazeera journalists Mohammed Fahmy and Baher Mohammed on bail, statements are churned out from all corners. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon may have one -- but he should still explain his silence while in Ethiopia for the recent African Union summit about the terrorism trial of that country's Zone 9 Bloggers.

  The Free UN Coalition for Access has been asking Ban's UN, and those who pass through it, about #FreeZone9Bloggers, as it asked about Peter Greste and his colleagues, for example here.

  But the UN in New York, and the UN in Addis Ababa, have been silent.

  On February 12 across First Avenue from the UN there was a panel discussion on protection of journalists at the International Peace Institute. Al Jazeera's Gabriel Elizondo spoke.

 Inner City Press ran across First Avenue and posed a question: does the UN system do for independent journalists and bloggers what it does for corporate or state media?

  The panelist who answered was David Kaye, UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression. Kaye said, "As an independent journalist, it's good to see you here. From different perspectives, I think that's right. Sometimes the UN can do so loudly and publicly. Some situation might call for a little bit more of a quieter engagement."
 
  Rapporteur Kaye said that "from the OHCHR perspective, we have different tools. Our first tool is to communicate with governments on the quiet side, send them allegation letters or urgent appeals, Zone 9 Bloggers being a good exampe of that.
If we don't get a response, to issue press releases, to call out bad behavior. I agree with the tenor or your comment -- we should be out there calling out the bad behavior at the moment that it happens, quietly or more publicly. Article 19 is not written to protect only journalists, it protects everyone's right to seek, receive and impart information."
 
  The other panelists were Bård Glad Pedersen, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway, Agnes Callamard, Director of the Global Freedom of Expression and Information Project at Columbia University and former Executive Director of Article 19, Matthew Rosenberg, Foreign Correspondent of the New York Times (with interesting stories of Afghanistan but who declined to discuss the NYT's coverage of Iraq before the US invasion) and Judith Matloff of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. There will be video.


 

Share |

* * *

These reports are usually also available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis.

Click here for Sept 26, 2011 New Yorker on Inner City Press at UN

Click for  BloggingHeads.tv re Libya, Sri Lanka, UN Corruption

Feedback: Editorial [at] innercitypress.com

UN Office: S-303, UN, NY 10017 USA

Reporter's mobile (and weekends): 718-716-3540

Google
  Search innercitypress.com  Search WWW (censored?)

Other, earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.

            Copyright 2006-2015 Inner City Press, Inc. To request reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at] innercitypress.com