By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - ESPN
UN GATE, March 1 – With the United Arab Emirates taking over presidency of the UN Security Council on March 1, after it twice abstained on Ukraine, midday on February 28 Inner City Press wrote to the UAE Mission to the UN to request access to its March 1 press conference by Ambassador Lana Nusseibeh (who skipped both abstention meetings).
Inner City Press wrote to the Mission at NYUNPRM at mofaic.gov.ae and Media at uaeun.org and to its listed spokesman Shahad.jm at uaeun.org, apparently MIA: "This is a timely request that you send Inner City Press the pass code(s) to access your UAE's Mission's UNSC Presidency press briefing by Ambassador Lana Nusseibeh, on March 1 and on every other day of March I have questions to ask on what you will do this month about the conflicts in Ukraine, Afghanistan, Sudan, Myanmar, Cameroon, Haiti, Nigeria, Yemen and Libya, etc. Inner City Press is asking to be provided with access / the passwords to your Mission's stakeouts and press conferences this month as UNSC President - including on issues of UN(SC) compliance with NYC COVID-19 rules. As president of the UNSC you have a duty to respond to media of and in the host city. As I hear that you may be moving the Council more and more fully back into its Chamber, either way I would also like to ask you to instruct MALU / USG-DGC Fleming to allow me to enter to cover it, for Inner City Press. I should be allowed to put question to your Mission as UNSC President - this is a formal request that you take steps to allow and not block on, by mid-afternoon Feb 28."
By the 2 PM "press" conference, full of congratulations and softball questions, nothing.
In the briefing, Ambassador Lana Nusseibeh took questions in clumps so as to pick and choose. Even so she dodged on Ukraine. And no one then let in asks anything about sub-Saharan Africa, where the UN raises most of its money, much less Socotra. They'll have lunch with Guterres on March 9, and do Yemen March 15. Inner City Press will report on all of it, inside or out.
The March 1 Press ban is inconsistent, to say the least, with the UAE's duty as President of the UN Security Council. Inner City Press covered the UN and UNSC under Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon then was thrown out under Antonio Guterres after asking him directly about [, among other things including Cameroon,] the omission from his financial disclosure covering 2016 of his link, through Lisbon's Gulbenkian Foundation which paid him money, to convicted UN briber CEFC China Energy.
This was and is a legitimate journalistic question however Inner City Press has been banned by Guterres and his USG Melissa Fleming.
There is no commitment by the UN Secretariat to even respond to a polite law firm letter seeking access to Inner City Press, see video. See also Press Freedom Tracker and The Independent (UK)
The UAE Mission and the UAE have a duty to not collude in censorship, and to take questions from media. Inner City Press is permitted (in fact, invited) to put WebEx questions to the IMF briefings, see below, and is accredited at the SDNY Federal court here in New York.
So it is up to the UAE and the UAE Mission to provide access.
Watch this site.
***
Your support means a lot. As little as $5 a month helps keep us going and grants you access to exclusive bonus material on our Patreon page. Click here to become a patron.
Feedback: Editorial [at] innercitypress.com
SDNY Press Room 480, front cubicle
500 Pearl Street, NY NY 10007 USA
