After
UN Critiqued Coverage of Sex
Abuse Detention of NGO Cttee Vice
Chair, Sudan Suspends
Newspaper
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS,
November 30 – Weeks after
Inner City Press asked the UN
about the vice chair of its NGO
committee being detained by New
York Police for sexual abuse and
the UN replied this was a matter
for Sudan not the UN to respond
to, Sudan has suspended a
newspaper for reporting on the
case. On October 10, Inner City
Press asked
the UN spokesman: "the vice
chairman of the NGO committee
has, was detained by police for,
for sexual harassment or
groping. And some people
have said this, this is sort of
a bad black eye for the UN
system, that this is the
individual… is it Secretary,
Second Secretary of the Sudanese
mission that's letting NGOs in
or not. Does the
Secretary-General, given what
he's said about gender equity,
etc., have any view on this…?
Spokesman: A couple things
to, to make clear. The
role of the NGO, the NGO chair
is elected by, by Member
States. It's up to those
Member States who make up the
committee to make a decision
based on what happened. We
clearly stand firmly against any
sort of, of harassment or of
illegal or bad behaviour.
This is now an issue between the
United States and the
Government, the Government of
Sudan. I think, as a matter of
practice, we would expect anyone
who has the privilege of
immunity to obey the rules and
the regulations and the laws and
the customs of the country in
which they work. And I do
want to make it clear that this
person is not a UN employee or
UN staffer as it's been said in
some of the press coverage."
After that statement by the UN,
now Sudan has suspended
Algareeda newspaper. There are
echoes here... Watch this site.
***
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