By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, January 9 -- What started in 2012 with censorship and rule breaking by the UN Correspondents Association has culminated in a total loss of legitimacy by the organization and its top officials.
Inner City Press, which faced multiple censorship demands from UNCA on stories about Sri Lanka, France and its head of UN Peacekeeping Herve Ladsous, and finally on the censorship itself, has reported on UNCA's extraordinary general meeting of Friday December 21.
There, contrary to its constitution requiring elections by December 15 and the Executive Committee leaving power by December 31, motions were made to ignore the deadlines.
When it was pointed out that this didn't comply with the rules on amending the constitution, the objection was shouted down and mocked.
Now the video has gone online, here (and embedded below)
Soon after, the UNCA Executive Committee members began tearing down or defacing fliers by the Free UN Coalition for Access raising these questions. Now they hare holding a supposed election in which there is no competition for any of the top six posts.
In fact, four of these six are the same people who held the positions during UNCA's 2012, when they lost 40% of UN media space, caught up in trying to expel the investigative press. The top five are all endorsed by the outgoing four-year president. This is not democracy, it is decay. And here is the video.
The replacement president, endorsed by the outgoing and running without opposition, did not appear to be present at the December 21 meeting setting up the UNConstitutional coronation, leaving views on this as well as on UNCA's year of censorship and exclusion attempts unknown. This is not democracy either.
Something is sick within UNCA, and this fixed election will not fix it.
The response of Inner City Press has been to launch a new and needed organization actually fighting for media rights with regard to the UN: the Free UN Coalition for Access, FUNCA. Its fliers have been defaced and torn down but there will be no stopping it. Watch this site.
