By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, December 4 -- How does censorship work at the UN?
Yesterday Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson about Ban's son in law Siddharth Chatterjee being named country representative to Kenya of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund.
The spokesperson did not answer that, instead telling Inner City Press, "I think you know how to reach UNFPA." Video here, from Minute 6:30. The questions Inner City Press has submitted are below.
When Inner City Press reported on complaints of nepotism in the hiring of Ban's son in law Chatterjee, and another publication picked up and credited Inner City Press' reporting, Chatterjee contacted that publication and demanded that its story be taken off the Internet, which happened.
Chatterjee asked the publication's reporter to tell Inner City Press to also remove from the Internet its story. Inner City Press refused.
This is too widespread in the UN system. After Inner City Press reported as context for the screening in the UN's Dag Hammarskjold Library Auditorium of a Sri Lanka government film denying it committed war crimes that the president of the United Nations Correspondents Association had previously rented a Manhattan apartment to Sri Lanka's Ambassador, other threats began.
Inner City Press was told to take its report off the Internet. Instead, Inner City Press offered to publish any response; none was ever provided. Instead, the Executive Committee of the UN Correspondents Association, now known as the UN's Censorship Alliance, began a kangaroo court proceeding seeking to expel Inner City Press.
In the midst of this, in a meeting of the UNCA Executive Committee (to which Inner City Press had been elected, before now having quit the organization and co-founded the new Free UN Coalition for Access to actually advocate for rather than undermine freedom of the press), Inner City Press was quizzed about its sources. As it always does and will do, Inner City Press refused to disclose its sources.
When the UNCA proceeding against Inner City Press was reported in Sri Lanka (and supposedly internal UNCA documents from it were immediately leaked to the UN byUNCA's first vice president Louis Charbonneau of Reuters, click here for that), death threats began to arrive from extremist supporters of Sri Lanka's Rajapaksa government. The UNCA Executive Committee's response was that this was not its problem.
This all culminated in UNCA Executive Committee members from Voice of America and Reuters urging the UN to throw Inner City Press out of the UN.
Since VOA is a US government agency, Inner City Press continuing its reporting has been able to use the US Freedom of Information Act to obtain hundreds of pages of documents, including VOA's request that Inner City Press' accreditation be "reviewed," and its statement that UNCA spoke with the UN about throwing Inner City Press out of the UN and that Reuters' Charbonneau and Agence France Presse's Tim Witcher supported its request.
So this is the UN's Censorship Alliance, UNCA. In 2013, UNCA "leaders" responded to the formation of the new Free UN Coalition for Access @FUNCA_info by creating multiple imposter Twitter accounts of FUNCA, then of Inner City Press itself, as exposed by MediaBistro.
That outside exposure slowed it, temporarily; nothing had been done by current and apparently future UNCA president Pamela Falk of CBS, who was directly told on the recordabout the UNCA trolling ultimately attributable to her under command responsibility. Audio here and here; here for the statement "the fundamental problem is your website" from the Reuters first vice president of the UN Censorship Alliance.
They continued with their trolling campaign as recently as November 27, the day before Thanksgiving.
And today in the clubhouse the UN gives to what has become its Censorship Alliance, Ban Ki-moon is the invited guest to raise a glass of champagne for an UNCA photo competition in which UN Photo is being given one of the prizes.
2d update: We note that photographer Cia Pak organized the competition, using the UNCA space because it's there [or, because the UN gives UNCA that space, rather than calling it for example the "UN Journalists' Club" and letting other use it.] Pak says he sent out the invitation to apply worldwide, for any UN related photographs. He indicates that in future years the volunteer judges will not vote on photos by those whom they supervise. Vaya con Dios.
2d update: We note that photographer Cia Pak organized the competition, using the UNCA space because it's there [or, because the UN gives UNCA that space, rather than calling it for example the "UN Journalists' Club" and letting other use it.] Pak says he sent out the invitation to apply worldwide, for any UN related photographs. He indicates that in future years the volunteer judges will not vote on photos by those whom they supervise. Vaya con Dios.
FUNCA has previously noted that just as journalists in the US White House complain when in-house administration photographers are given exclusive access banning the independent press, the UN too should stop this. But UNCA is giving this award.
What's next, when the UN Censorship Alliance again invites Ban later this month and charges guests $250 a plate -- an award to UN News Centre or Ban's speech writers, from the UN's Censorship Alliance? Falk is running unopposed to continue this, along with a Reuters replacement, other censors, indicters and kangaroo court "judges." There have been no reforms at all this the above described. This is how censorship at the UN works.
Here are the questions Inner City Press has put to the two top spokespeople at UNFPA:
This is a request for UNFPA to confirm or deny that Siddhartha Chatterjee has been selected "as the new head of the United Nations Population Fund in Kenya."
If so, please confirm or deny that the government of Kenya has "delayed accept[ing] the appointment" and describe how that acceptance process works, what has happened so far and where it stands.
Also, please describe in detail the recruitment and selection process for the position and how the son in law of the UN Secretary General was selected, and please comment on those who see the potential for nepotism or favoritism.
Watch this site.
