By Matthew Russell Lee, Video
UNITED NATIONS, March 6 – The crackdown in Cameroon by 36-year government of Paul Biya was raised in the March 6 press conference at the UN on children and armed conflict, by Inner City Press. The panelist from Human Rights Watch, which omitted Cameroon, Gabon and Togo and some others from its 2018 "World" report and then refused to explain it, was Jo Becker, so Inner City Press asked about the omission from HRW's report.
She said that HRW has to decide where to spend the resources it receives, and apparently didn't see Cameroon as among the 90 countries meriting a look in their "World" report, nor Gabon or Togo. Video here.
To make sure the question was not misunderstood, given the answer, Inner City Press waited as others from who had skipped the press conference came in to ask questions, then showed Ms. Becker the report. She said she had understood the question. (She did not explain why "Ashley" who answered for HRW Press never returned with this answer, nor put Inner City Press back on HRW's mailing lists). So who makes these decisions for Human Rights Watch?
HRW has refused to provide any read-outs of the issues it raises to Guterres. Guterres is himself far from transparent. On February 28 his close protection ordered Inner City Press to stop recording, in a photo op session in which Guterres conveyed his "very very warm regards" to Egypt's Sisi. Guterres' Secretariat has assigned Inner City Press' long time UN work space to a no-show Sisi state media, Akhbar al Yom. (HRW's UN lobbying previous lobbied Guterres' spokesman to throw Inner City Press out of the UN, then got his leaked complaint to the UN removed from Google Search by mis-characterizing it as copyrighted).
