UNITED NATIONS, June 10 -- While the UN is supposed to stand for free speech and freedom of the press, in its operations even in its headquarters it has engaged in censorship and remains resistant to new media.
When for example a letter was recently posted on the UN's i-Seek website which criticized among others the Under Secretary General for Management, and spoke of filing a UN Dispute Tribunal complaint against Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the UN official in charge of i-Seek unceremoniously had the letter removed. He wrote to the Union president on June 8:
Subject: Iseek
Eric Falt/NY/UNO
08/06/2010 12:48 PM
cc Kiyotaka Akasaka/NY/UNO@UNHQ, Angela Kane/NY/UNO@UNHQ, Catherine Pollard/NY/UNO@UNHQ
Dear colleagues,
I am writing to you in my capacity as Chair of the Editorial Board of Iseek.
I wish to inform you that "A Letter from the President United Nations Staff Union", No. 5 (dated 27 May 2010 and posted on iSeek under "Global Announcements" by the Staff Union and under "Staff Unions" by the iSeek Editorial team) has now been removed from the website on the basis of the "iSeek Guidelines", Section V. Guiding Principles, where the following is stipulated:
"While iSeek may be a forum for presenting differing views on issues of concern to staff, it should not be used to denigrate any staff member".
iSeek seeks to be vigilant in making sure that content does adhere strictly to these Principles, and an oversight was made in this case.
Thanks for your kind attention and regards.
If the UN feels free to remove or censor, as the Staff Union sees it, anything that arguably denigrates a UN official, the UN in this case is practice a form of lese majeste, as in countries which it is a crime to criticize the monarch.
Inner City Press approached Under Secretary General Kiyo Akasaka the same day the above directive was sent, and asked both about the apparent censorship, and about the exclusion of bloggers from the UN's Media Accreditation guidelines. Mr. Akasaka said that a subordinate, soon to leave to UNESCO, is in charge of i-Seek, and is enforcing the non-denigration policy that the UN has, apparently without considering freedom of expression. He told Inner City Press about his own blog.
While the UN talks about, and even haltingly uses, new media like blogs, its Media Accreditation guidelines remain outmoded, speaking of "bona fide" and "registered media organizations." Who decides what's bona fide? Registered with whom, in a country with a free press?
While, after advocacy, Inner City Press expects soon to finally see bloggers explicitly included in the UN's Media Accreditation guidelines which the UN is revising, it is 2010. Censorship and outmoded exclusions show yet another gap between what the UN says, and what it does. Watch this site.
