Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un5vspress062909.html
UNITED NATIONS, June 29 -- Senior UN officials' targeting of three investigative media organizations, exposed by Inner City Press earlier this month, is now the subject of a Congressional "Dear Colleague" letter circulated to all 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives. The letter, being put online here, states that
"Angered by past and continuing media reports of corruption, mismanagement and inaction at the United Nations, the UN is again seeking to cover up evidence and stifle freedom of the press.
Meeting on May 8 about 'reporting by the press,' high level UN officials discussed sending threatening letters to several press agencies and other bodies, as well as complaining to Google News about a small, independent news agency that has uncovered numerous UN scandals. Last year, a similar complaint resulted in that agency's temporary removal from Google News. In response to a question about that meeting, the Secretary General's spokeswoman furiously retorted, 'I don't have to account to you for meetings I participate in.'
The UN's Department of Management is also reportedly pushing to obstruct press coverage, seeking to charge media outlets $23,000 to maintain office space, and to move journalists covering the UN into open, un-walled offices -- deterring whistleblowers from coming forth and preventing oversight.
These UN efforts to restrict press freedom and oversight directly contravene the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which recognized that 'Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression... and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.' Once again, the UN is actually undermining the principles on which it was founded."
The May 8 meeting, involving Under Secretaries General Angela Kane (Management), Kiyo Akasaka (Public Information) and Patricia O'Brien (Legal Affairs), as well as Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's speech writer Michael Meyer and Spokesperson Michele Montas, was memorialized in a memo from Ms. Kane to Ban Ki-moon. Inner City Press was shown the memo, wrote and asked Ban's spokeswoman Michele Montas about it by email, along with the three USGs, none of whom responded.
On June 2, Inner City Press asked Ms. Montas (Video here, from Minute 14:33)
Inner City Press: The other question is, one, I e-mailed you, but I’m compelled to ask it. Whether you participated in an 18 May meeting with Ms. Angela Kane and certain others about how the UN would have a legal strategy on the Wall Street Journal, Fox News and Inner City Press, including seeking to de-list it from Google News?
Spokesperson Montas: Okay, Matthew, I just want to point out that I don’t have to account to you about the meetings I participate in. I participate in about seven meetings a day, okay. I don’t have any accounts to give you about what was discussed in a specific meeting that was held here at UN Headquarters!
Inner City Press: I have seen the minutes, but I guess my question to you is simply, before writing the article, how was the content of that meeting consistent with Article 19 and the First Amendment and what Mr. Ban said on 7 May about freedom of the press and of online meetings?
That question was never answered. Ms. Montas went on to claim to Fox News that there was no document, and that complaining to Google News about Inner City Press had not been discussed. "Montas also denied Inner City Press's report that the minutes indicate U.N. officials 'should consider complaining to Google News.'"
After that, Inner City Press published the pertinent portions of the memo, including about Google News, and sent it to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, who has also not responded.
Now Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee has noted the UN's non-response and violation of its own stated principles. Ban is on his way to the Far East, among other stops to visit Myanmar with a hand-picked groups of reporters whom he hopes will give positive coverage. Elsewhere at the UN, the President of the General Assembly, exposed for using UN funds to pay two of his relatives, now instructs his spokesman to refuse to answer any more questions about how his Office uses UN -- and taxpayer -- funds. Watch this site.
