By Matthew Russell Lee, Photo
UNITED NATIONS, January 4 – It seems obvious that journalists should not be serving up the "delicacies" of those they purported to be covering. But at the UN, as with content neutral accreditation and access rules, that is thrown out the window. This month the UN Correspondents Association is partnering with Kazakhstan, whose new media law is called repressive and draconian, to distribute "national delicacies" every Tuesday and Thursday. Photo here.
It's that Kazakhstan is president of the Security Council this month, and UNCA is selling the correspondents it charges a hundred dollars to access, or the illusion of access, however it might appear. In December it was espresso served up by Italy, the country of UNCA's long time landlord president Giampaolo Pioli. Now, it's Kazakhstan. A new and peculiarly UN tradition, of sycophantry, is born. And the Free UN Coalition for Access opposes it.
We are certainly open to hearing from the Kazazh Mission its side of the story. But any "press" group which partners to hand out delicacies, and limits information to those who pay it money, is no press organization at all, except in today's UN. Here is RSF's review of Kazakhstan's new law: "Under one of the most controversial amendments, journalists are required to obtain the permission of persons named in their articles before publishing information involving matters of 'personal and family confidentiality.' Investigative journalists fear it could obstruct their reporting, especially coverage of corruption. There is similar concern about a ban on “information violating lawful interests,” which are also not defined. One of the amendments complicates the right of access to state-held information. The length of the time within which officials must answer journalists’ questions is more than doubled, with the result that by the time journalists get their answer, there is every chance it will no longer be newsworthy. Furthermore, officials are also given the right to classify certain answers. Under one of the amendments, Internet users are required to identify themselves before posting a comment on a news website, and their information will be stored for three months. This suggests that there could be a further increase in the number of people being jailed because of their online comments, which has already grown sharply in recent years."
But UNCA, now the UN's Censorship Alliance, will be serving up those Kazakh national delicacies for the Mission. In other related news, Iran will be the subject of a UN Security Council meeting of some type on January 5 at 3 pm. There may be a procedural vote - Inner City Press on January 4 asked Russian Ambassador Nebenzia about any Iran meeting and he replied, "Not unless they held one without me." Kazakhstan is the president of the Security Council for January, and just as they refused on January 2 to take a single Press question about Africa (the first question was given as a delicacy to UNCA, which allowed for questions to be bundled in packs of five to be evaded), on January 4 they sent notice only to their favored correspondents. (Notable, given press freedom issues there.) As quickly obtained by Inner City Press from multiple sources, they wrote: "Dear friends, To keep you informed, tomorrow SC meets on Iran at 3.00PM, open format. And a short announcement, our Delegation is delighted to invite you to a Tea and Coffee table with Kazakh national delights, to be served every Tuesday and Thursday, starting from 9 January, 9.30 to 11.30AM, in the UNCA Room, 3d Floor, Secretariat Building. Alma Konurbayeva, Spokesperson / Counsellor, Permanent Mission of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the United Nations." Of what might those "national delights" consist? When Kazazhstan held a press conference about its Presidency of the UN Security Council for January, Ambassador Kairat Umarov began by noting that the majority of the agenda involves countries in Africa: at least seven peacekeeping missions to be reviewed in the month, with Burundi and Cameroon not even listed. But when the Kazakh mission spokeswoman took questions, not a single one was on anything in Africa. There was climate change, from a self-described syndicated columnist. There were questions about two (non-African) countries in the Program of Work's footnotes. But not a single one on anywhere in Africa.
Inner City Press said loudly, “On the DRC did anyone even ask for a statement on the crackdown?” Video here from 44:15. But the Ambassador chose to answer another question, about an issue he called close to Kazakhstan's heart, then ended it.
He had said, during the press conference, the Kazakhstan has energy resources for the next 100 years. They won the Asia seat over Thailand; apparently that didn't require political resources, at least in Africa. We'll have more on this.
