By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Video Song
BBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - CJR - PFT
UN GATE, June 9 – Right after dissident blogger Pratasevich was grabbed off a Ryan Air flight forced to land in Belarus, many including the US spoke.
But for more than a full day, nothing from Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary General who rarely takes questions and even had the Press which asked him about the mass killings in Cameroon thrown out of the UN. Alert here; new Belarus Blues song here.
On June 9, the Committee to Protect Journalists held a Zoom press conference with Volha Siakhovich of BAJ on the topic, and Inner City Press submitted two questions:
"Question from Inner City Press: Do you think the Biden Administration's decision to limit to a vague "members of the news media doing their jobs" protection against gag orders and surveillance undermine its ability to fully pursue the issue of press freedom in Belarus? Likewise, do you think the UN Secretariat's failure to have any content neutral media accreditation and access rules undermine the ability of it and those responsible to raise Belarus's abuses, to the degree the will to do so exists in anything but the vaguest terms?"
The response, photo here, by CPJ's Gypsy Guillén Kaiser, included that CPJ has no comment on the UN's accreditation policies. How not, if they cite to and use the UN? In fact, the UN Group of Friends was cited.
Will CPJ's solicitude for UN censorship end with its change in leadership, also announced on June 9? Watch this site.
Late and hypocritical, given that they have done nothing about Guterres banning Inner City Press now for 1073 days amid its questions, this: "The co-chairs of the United Nations Group of Friends for the Protection of Journalists – Greece, France and Lithuania - and the undersigned Members of the Group of Friends strongly condemn the forced landing of a Ryanair flight in Minsk, Belarus, on May 23, 2021, prompted by Belarusian authorities in order to arrest and detain independent journalist Raman Pratasevich and his companion, Sofia Sapega...
There can be no Press Freedom when there is fear. [See see this and this at UN.]
Signed, Co-chairs of the UN Group of Friends for the Protection of Journalists, Ambassadors, Permanent Representatives of Greece, France and Lithuania
Annex: Co-signatories members of the Group of Friends (in alphabetical order): Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, Costa Rica, Ghana, Latvia, Republic of Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, USA, Uruguay."
On May 28, Guterres' UN Press Briefing Room hosted a press conference, from which Inner City Press was banned, in which the grabbing of Pratasevich was called fake news, in response to questions from state media.
Inner City Press has asked then incoming UNSC president for June Estonia for access, to which there has been no response (ACT is just an act) - and it and the Free UN Coalition for Access (FUNCA) will report on all results.
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