By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, September 4 -- Here is how the UN works, or doesn't: on August 27, after Inner City Press in the days before had questioned Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's dubious approach to Sri Lanka and Libya, and UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous' stonewalling on Darfurand elsewhere, the UN's Censorship Alliance decided to fight back.
A troll social media account linked to the UN Correspondents Association, about which the Free UN Coalition for Access had notified not only UNCA and its head Pamela Falk but also Reuters, whose UN bureau chief tried to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN then lobbied Google (here) to block his leaked “for the record” complaint from Google's search, revived on July 27, went on the offensive against Inner City Press again -- anonymously, of course.
The UN itself was notified of this account, since it continues to partner with UNCA as its UN Censorship Alliance, setting aside first questions and giving it a large, usually unused room even as the UN evicted the News Agency of Nigeria from its workspace at the UN citing lack of space.
This same troll social media account has promoted the current UN spokesman, to whom the Reuters bureau chief's complaint to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN was directed.
Now that same spokesman defends Ban Ki-moon, for example adopting Ladsous' censorship on September 3, not taking Press questions on Ladsous' DPKO ordering peacekeepers to surrender to the Al Nusra Front.
His office has in the past censored from the UN's transcripts even the name of the Free UN Coalition for Access, which Inner City Press co-founded after members of UNCA's Executive Committee including for example Voice of America (Freedom of Information Act obtained document here), Agence France Presse (document here),Bloomberg and Reuters, sought to get it thrown out.
What's telling about these revivals of UNCA's trolls social media campaign is it is tied to when the UN is under attack. That's why they call it the UN's Censorship Alliance.
Now the big room the UN gives them, entirely closed from August 1 to August 19, while its glassed in bulletin board had and has an advertisement by one of its UNCA members to buy a used car for over $7,000, is set to be used for trickery, with with purported press freedom organization partnering with censors to purportedly talk about... press freedom. We'll have more on this.
And what of the UN's previous argument against FUNCA's substantive fliers, that they had to be approved by the UN? Are UNCA's used car sales approved by Ban Ki-moon? Are its anonymous trolling social media accounts? Watch this site.
