By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, July 7 -- The US State Department on July 6 released its North Korea human rights report, and held an embargoed press call on it. On July 7 Inner City Press asked UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Stephane Dujarric for Ban's comment on it; he said among other things "The Secretary-General believes that discussion of human rights concerns allows for a more comprehensive assessment and action when addressing security and stability concerns on the Korean Peninsula."
Reuters wrote this up as if they'd asked the question, emphasizing the Ban is pressuring China to do more on DPRK humna rights. But in what Dujarric read out before Inner City Press' questions, about Ban in China, there was mention of DPRK but NOTHING about human rights. This is how the UN works, or doesn't.
Inner City Press asked Dujarric about Ban inviting Kim Jong Un to a conference in Turkmenistan, then asked this month's Security Council President Koro Bassho of Japan about the new US sanctions. They have not yet come up in the Security Council. Will Ban's invites?
When Ban Ki-moon wrapped up his five day campaign trip in South Korea with a three-question "press conference" at the UN's DPI-NGO conference, he criticized "coverage of what was supposed to be off-the-record meeting with the Kwanhoon Club" of political correspondents.
Even during Ban's long visit to South Korea, Inner City Press in New York where it has been evicted from its long time shared UN office and confined to minders, told not to question diplomats asked the UN why no transcript was provided of Ban's session with the Kwanhoon Club. It asked again on June 10, the day after Ban himself called such questions "undue."
