By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
February 2 --
The UN is so
infused with
double
standards
that its
official
either cannot
see, or will
not
acknowledge,
them.
On
Friday
afternoon UN
Department of
Public
Information
official
Stephane
Dujarric
e-mailed a
series of
bureaucratic
(non) answers
to
press freedom
questions
posed more
than two weeks
before. He
concluded, "I
would
appreciate you
posting this
email in
full."
Four
hours later
Dujarric
replied to a
letter
addressed to
his boss and
DPI chief
Peter
Launsky-Tieffenthal
and showing
that the
responses
were totally
unsatisfactory
and that
Dujarric
because of his
murky
role
in previous
dis-accreditation
attempts
was and is not
the right
interlocutor
(a good UN
word, that,
but apparently
not understood
by DPI in this
case).
Ignoring
the
critique,
Dujarric
insisted, "I
would
appreciate, as
asked
in my email to
you earlier
today, that
you publish my
answers in
full
on Inner City
Press and/or
FUNCA."
FUNCA
is the Free
UN Coalition
for Access,
which was
launched on
December
7, 2012 to
defend the
rights of
journalists at
and from the
UN, since
the long-time
and now
decayed UN
Correspondents
Association
not only
does not
defend, but in
2012 affirmatively
attacked, the
rights of
the
investigative
Press at the
UN.
All
that said,
Dujarric
ignored a
basic request
FUNCA made to
him -- or
really to his
boss Peter
Launsky-Tieffenthal,
who has yet to
respond.
Just as UNCA
has a bulletin
board in the
UN press area
--
UNCA used its
glassed-in
board to leave
posted for
months in 2012
a
letter
denouncing
Inner City
Press -- the
new FUNCA
either must be
permitted to
post flyers on
an unbranded
UN Journalists
board, or to
have a
bulletin board
of its own, to
echo a movie
title.
This
right to equal
treatment is
not an
abstraction.
Inner City
Press
already
published the
wan January 24
letter to
Dujarric and
Launsky-Tieffenthal
signed by
UNCA's new
president,
Pamela S. Falk
of
CBS, here.
After
Inner City
Press
published it,
UNCA hastily
posted its
letter on its
glassed in
bulletin
board, which
is right next
to Pamela
Falk's CBS
office (which,
unlike others'
cubicles, is
enclosed and
private).
So
where is the
UN's response
to UNCA's and
Falk's letter?
Is the UN
asking Falk to
post it as
well? On the
bulletin board
that it allows
only UNCA, but
no one else,
to have, as in
a one-party
state?
Friday
UNCA's /
Falk's glassed
in board had
her letter to
DPI, but no
response. Free
UN Coalition
for Access
flyers,
including next
to the board
and CBS door,
had been torn
down. The day
previous, the
flyers were
torn down off
the door to
Inner City
Press'
cubicle.
Posting,
indeed.
It's
worth noting
that Pamela
Falk has in
the past often
said to Inner
City Press, "I
am a lawyer."
She is an
American --
this is
eminently
clear in
questions
asked -- and
so presumably
aware of the
First
Amendment to
the US
Constitution.
The
free speech
right to post
flyers in the
UN critical of
the UN, and to
equal
treatment
between groups
like UNCA and
FUNCA, is
First
Amendment 101.
So where is
Pam Falk?
Watch this
site.
