By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, January 7 – When UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres took five media questions on August 16 after a two week vacation, Inner City Press tried to ask him about the UN bribery verdict against Ng Lap Seng rendered by a jury in lower Manhattan just before he left. Guterres heard the question, but did not answer. Video here.
Instead, his deputy spokesman Farhan Haq handpicked five questioners, two on U.S. President Donald Trump and the first on Venezuela, in response to which Guterres read from notes. Reuters was called on second, asked two questions then later began a third. The UN Correspondents Association president invited Guterres to distinguish himself from Trump, which Guterres coyly did and didn't do.
Then when Inner City Press asked about the Ng Lap Seng guilty verdict, Guterres swept the question away with his and and left with Maher Nasser the acting chief of his Department of Public Information, which without due process evicted and still restricts Inner City Press for pursuing the Ng Lap Seng bribery scandal in the UN Press Briefing Room.
Guterres and his deputy Amina J. Mohammed have both received a petition with over 2,000 signatures to end the restrictions on the Press, particularly after the Ng Lap Seng UN bribery guilty verdicts.
But there is silence, invisibility, then pre-screened questions. Even among those, nothing on Syria, Yemen, or Libya where Guterres' envoy has praised the Italian Navy's cooperation with the Libyan coast guard, or Kenya where a recent UN official has been banned from travel in connection with electoral irregularities, much less Burundian refugees and abuses by Cameroon. On Western Sahara, moments after Guterres' stakeout, Horst Kohler was belatedly named to the long empty envoy position. We'll have more on this.
