By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, February 13 -- Amid news that Egypt has released two Al Jazeera journalists Mohammed Fahmy and Baher Mohammed on bail, statements are churned out from all corners.
Now UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has one:
"The Secretary-General welcomes the decision by the Egyptian authorities to release on bail the journalists Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed. He hopes that their cases, as well as those of other journalists in detention, will be resolved expeditiously and in accordance with Egypt’s international obligations to protect the freedoms of expression and association."
Ban Ki-moon should still explain his silence while in Ethiopia for the recent African Union summit about the terrorism trial of that country's Zone 9 Bloggers.
The Free UN Coalition for Access has been asking Ban's UN, and those who pass through it, about #FreeZone9Bloggers, as it asked about Peter Greste and his colleagues, for example here.
But the UN in New York, and the UN in Addis Ababa, have been silent.
On February 12 across First Avenue from the UN there was a panel discussion on protection of journalists at the International Peace Institute. Al Jazeera's Gabriel Elizondo spoke.
Inner City Press ran across First Avenue and posed a question: does the UN system do for independent journalists and bloggers what it does for corporate or state media?
The panelist who answered was David Kaye, UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression. Kaye said, "As an independent journalist, it's good to see you here. From different perspectives, I think that's right. Sometimes the UN can do so loudly and publicly. Some situation might call for a little bit more of a quieter engagement."
Rapporteur Kaye said that "from the OHCHR perspective, we have different tools. Our first tool is to communicate with governments on the quiet side, send them allegation letters or urgent appeals, Zone 9 Bloggers being a good exampe of that.
If we don't get a response, to issue press releases, to call out bad behavior. I agree with the tenor or your comment -- we should be out there calling out the bad behavior at the moment that it happens, quietly or more publicly. Article 19 is not written to protect only journalists, it protects everyone's right to seek, receive and impart information."
The other panelists were Bård Glad Pedersen, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway, Agnes Callamard, Director of the Global Freedom of Expression and Information Project at Columbia University and former Executive Director of Article 19, Matthew Rosenberg, Foreign Correspondent of the New York Times (with interesting stories of Afghanistan but who declined to discuss the NYT's coverage of Iraq before the US invasion) and Judith Matloff of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. There will be video.
Rapporteur Kaye said that "from the OHCHR perspective, we have different tools. Our first tool is to communicate with governments on the quiet side, send them allegation letters or urgent appeals, Zone 9 Bloggers being a good exampe of that.
If we don't get a response, to issue press releases, to call out bad behavior. I agree with the tenor or your comment -- we should be out there calling out the bad behavior at the moment that it happens, quietly or more publicly. Article 19 is not written to protect only journalists, it protects everyone's right to seek, receive and impart information."
The other panelists were Bård Glad Pedersen, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway, Agnes Callamard, Director of the Global Freedom of Expression and Information Project at Columbia University and former Executive Director of Article 19, Matthew Rosenberg, Foreign Correspondent of the New York Times (with interesting stories of Afghanistan but who declined to discuss the NYT's coverage of Iraq before the US invasion) and Judith Matloff of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. There will be video.
