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UNITED NATIONS,
November 1 – When UN Special
Rapporteur David A. Kaye held
a short press conference at
the UN on October 25, he
called for the UN to institute
an access to information
policy. Inner City Press asked
him to specify what the UN
Secretariat of Antonio
Guterres can and should do on
its own, without waiting for
or blaming the General
Assembly. Inner City Press
also asked him about the UN
new October 20 threat
to review its accreditation,
including for ill-defined
violations on an unspecified
date on the UN's 38th floor.
Video here.
On November 2, with that threat
still in place and supplemented
by a perhaps related Press
threat from Cameroon, here,
Inner City Press asked a
journalist protection panel at
the UN about financial threats
to independent reporting, for
example Google's YouTube's
demonetization of reporting
about the conflicts in Yemen,
Cameroon and elsewhere, even
of UN Q&As about these
conflicts. Journalism
professor
Michelle Ferrier answered
about the unaccountable power
of the large social media
platforms and their algorithms.
(It is unclear why the UN did
not webcast through journalism
event; Department of Public
Information deputy Maher Nasser
was there and could perhaps
explain - he blocks Inner City
Press on Twitter and is behind
the October 20 threat to Inner
City Press' accreditation and
continuing restrictions. He
has made it UNclear if the
Press can publish even
recordings of events in the
UN's own Media Alert, or at
stakeout areas, or photo ops.)
The event was called "Ending
impunity for crimes against journalists"
and including Nupur Basu of
India, Sonali Samarasinghe
Wickrematunge of Sri Lanka,
Christophe Deloire of RSF and
Antonio Guterres' rarely-seen
Under Secretary General for
Policy Ana Maria Menendez,
last seen in the UN Press
Briefing Room before General
Assembly week when she was
asked to tell the 38th floor -
herself and Guterres - about
the retaliatory restrictions
on the Press. We'll have more
on this.
Back on October
25, Kaye said the Secretariat
can act on FOIA, while
educating and bringing the
General Assembly along. He
called unsatisfactory the UN's
previous response
to his inquiry
about the eviction of
Inner City Press (for covering
an event in the same UN Press
Briefing Room Kaye spoke in).
Two hours later, Inner City
Press asked UN deputy
spokesman Farhan Haq about
both issues. From the UN
transcript: regarding
the freedom of information
access, this is something that
we've been exploring for some
years. There continues
to be input from various
different departments,
including those dealing with
our archives and those dealing
with legal affairs, to look
into the situation. And
so we'll be in touch with the
Member States. So, that
is something that is a work in
progress that, as time goes
on, we always try to
reinvigorate and revamp our
processes for dealing with
situations, and we'll do that
in this case, as well. Inner
City Press: Same topic?
Yeah, he seemed to say that…
that it's as simple as set…
it's not about archives.
It's as simple as setting up a
procedure in which, rather
than just the inform… the UN
choosing which information to
push forward, that it's set up
a procedure in which, based on
a re… a request by the press
or the public, there's some
responsibility on the
Secretariat to provide
information. And he said
that that can be done…
although it would be good to
bring Member States along and
to get buy-in from the General
Assembly that, although it's
been said here many times, it
doesn't require the General
Assembly to… to authorise the
Secretariat to make financial
and other information
available to the public upon
request, not just as it's put
out. So, I'm just… I
want to be very
specific. It's not about
archives or Member
States. Will António
Guterres establish, during
his… I don't know… in the next
three months, six months, a
procedure in which requests
for information can be made
and will be answered as
required not voluntarily or by
discretion? Deputy
Spokesman: Well, with
respect for the envoy's… the
Special Rapporteur's views,
those are his views. And
we do have, like I said, a
process in place, which does
include involvement with the
Member States, and so we'll
continue on that track. Inner
City Press: He also called a
previous response to one of
his inquiries to the UN
unsatisfactory. I don't
know if you've seen the press
conference, and I don’t want
to actually… I'm pretty sure
what you'd say if I… so, I'm
wondering, you say there's as
process, but doesn't the UN
encourage Member States to
respond to Special Rapporteurs
and probably to take into
account if the Special
Rapporteur who made the
inquiry calls the response
unsatisfactory maybe to do
another response or figure out
why it's unsatisfactory?
Deputy Spokesman: Yes,
we do. And, of course,
we'll continue to be in
dialogue with Special
Rapporteurs. We want to
make sure that their various
concerns are addressed.
But this is, as I mentioned, a
topic on which we've been
doing work, and we'll
continue." We'll see. Kaye
said he looks forward to
speaking with new (seven week)
head of the Department of
Public Information Alison
Smale.
Fine - but the
October 20 threat was issued
under Smale, and she has still
not responded to twopetitions
to her in September to reverse
20 months of restrictions and
restore Inner City Press to
its long-time shared work
space, currently assigned to a
no-show, no-question Egyptian
state media, Akhbar al Yom,
which came in only for "faux pooling"
of Guterres meeting with Sisi,
here. We'll have more on all
that. Kaye field questions
about BBC in Iran, Trump and
citing a lack of mobility for
journalists in Japan, on which
we may have more.
The UN delivered a threat
to Inner City Press to
“review” it accreditation on
Friday afternoon at 5 pm. The
UN official who signed the letter,
when Inner City Press went to
ask about the undefined
violation of live-streaming
Periscope video at a photo op
by UN Secretary General
Antonio Guterres, had already
left, minutes after sending
the threat. This comes two
days after Inner City Press asked Guterres about the
UN inaction on threatened
genocide in Cameroon, and the
UN claimed
Guterres hadn't heard the
15-second long question.
It also
comes after Alison Smale the
head of the Department of
Public Information which would
“review” Inner City Press'
accreditation has ignored threeseparatepetitions
from Inner City Press in the
six weeks she has been in the
job, urging her to remove
restrictions on Inner City
Press' reporting which hinder
its coverage of the UN's
performance in such crises as
Yemen,
Kenya,
Myanmar,
and the Central African
Republic where Guterres
travels next week, with
Smale's DPI saying its
coverage of the trip will be a
test of its public relations
ability. But the UN official
who triggered the complaint is
Maher Nasser, who filled in
for Smale before she arrived.
His complaint is that audio of
what he said to Inner City
Press as it staked out the
elevators in the UN lobby
openly recording, as it has
for example
with Cameroon's Ambassador
Tommo Monthe, here,
was similarly published.
A UN “Public Information”
official is complaining about
an article, and abusing his
position to threaten to review
Inner City Press'
accreditation. The UN has
previously been called
out for targeting Inner
City Press, and for having no
rules or due process.
But the UN is entirely
UNaccountable, impunity on
censorship as, bigger picture,
on the cholera it brought to
Haiti. And, it seems, Antonio
Guterres has not reformed or
reversed anything. This threat
is from an official involved
in the last round of
retaliation who told Inner
City Press on Twitter to be
less "negative" about the UN -
amid inaction on the mass
killing in Cameroon - and who
allowed pro-UN hecking of
Inner City Press' questions
about the cholera the UN
brought to Haiti and the Ng
Lap Seng /John Ashe UN bribery
scandal which resulted in six
guilty verdicts. We'll have
more on this.
***
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