By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
May 1 -- When
the UN
"celebrated"
World Press
Freedom Day on
May 1, the
speeches all
sounded good.
But there were
inconsistencies
large and
small.
In Ethiopia,
for example,
the government
has arrested
nine
journalists
including six
Zone 9
bloggers.
Inner City
Press,
including on
behalf of the
Free
UN Coalition
for Access,
has twice
asked
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
spokesman
Stephane
Dujarric for
any UN
comment. There
has been none.
The UN has a
big office in
Addis Ababa
and wants to
stay there.
In Burundi,
two
journalists
are being
hauled before
the courts for
publishing a
UN cable,
which Inner
City Press put
online here, which
warned
of the
governing
party arming
its youth
wing. Inner
City Press and
FUNCA asked
Dujarric for
any comment:
there was
none.
Likewise on
May 1 from
Dujarric's
deputy Farhan
Haq, when
Inner City
Press asked
him about the
Burundi
journalists,
no comment.
But
right inside
the UN,
journalism in
under fire.
For example on
April 15,
Ambassador Gerard
Araud of
Permanent
Security
Council member
France told a
reporter, "You
are not a
journalist,
you are an
agent."
Inner City
Press for the
Free UN
Coalition for
Access asked
Dujarric to
convey to
Araud (and to
his
forthcoming
successor
Jacques
Audibert) the
stated
position that
correspondents
should be
respected. But
this has not
happened.
The
attacked
correspondent
tells FUNCA
that the old
UN
Correspondents
Association,
to which he
pays dues and
on whose
Executive
Committee he
and Inner City
Press used to
serve (Inner
City Press,
disgusted,
quit) that
UNCA is
"dragging its
feet."
It's a
pattern: UNCA
executive
committee
members
angered at an
Inner City
Press
reporting
about Sri
Lanka and
conflicts of
interest tried
to get Inner
City Press
thrown out,
including of
the UN. Then
UNCA executive
committee
Louis
Charbonneau of
Reuters got a
leaked copy of
his "for the
record"
complaint to
the UN blocked
from Google's
Search,
claiming it
was private
under the
Digital
Millennium
Copyright Act,
here. This
is outright
censorship.
And so
it was
particularly
hypocritical,
but typically
UN, that
UNCA's
2013-2014
president
Pamela Falk of
CBS sat on the
UN's #WPFD
panel,
speechifying
about freedom
of information
even after she
and her board
withheld
the tape and
transcript of
a one hour
Q&A
session with
Ban Ki-moon
from which
they used
quotes.
No new hashtag
can make up
for this.
These are
insiders; this
is not freedom
of the press.
This is the
problem, and
the new Free
UN Coalition
for Access
will continue
to confront
it, inside the
UN and beyond.
Watch this
site, and this one.
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