By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, July 15 -- When countries running for seats on the UN Human Rights Council appeared in the ECOSOC Chamber to take questions on July 15, it was a staffer from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights who moderated. Inner City Press ran to the room to asked questions; not called on, it tweeted this question: on OHCHR cover-up of child rapes in the Central African Republic, what's the HRC oversight role?
When that question was read out, Switzerland's Ambassador Paul Seger said the issue had injured the reputation of the UN and OHCHR and that the Human Rights Council might have to take it up, once Ban Ki-moon's “independent” panel issues its report, due in mid-September. Slovenia and Georgia also responded.
In the interim, Inner City Press ran to the ECOSOC Chamber a second time, from the Security Council stakeout, and asked about the the delay in the report on Sri Lanka, due in March, to September, and about freedom of the press, specifically but not only in South Korea. Video here.
Seger said the UN was not at its best on Sri Lanka; South Korea argued that press freedom is only abridged for national security. (One wonders.) Georgia also responded on press freedoms; Inner City Press was thus glad to have asked the question for the Free UN Coalition for Access, FUNCA.
The exercise on July 15 was on balance a good one, and leads one to wonder again why at least this, if not direct debate, is not possible or even required in the race for the next Secretary General. We'll have more on this.
