By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Maxwell Book
BBC-Guardian UK - Honduras - ESPN NY Mag
UN GATE / SDNY, May 5 – In the United Nations there is a flurry of statements about World Press Freedom Day, not least for the so-called UN Correspondents Association.
But this group has refused to respond in any way to a July 6, 2021 letter to each of its Executive Committee members about the UN's banning of investigative Inner City Press, roughed up inside the UN on July 3, 2018 and banned since. See below.
But UNCA partners in a "confidential" advertisement for a corporation, sending its members (several of whom, disgusted, leaked to Inner City Press) -- "On Wednesday, 11 May, the Office of the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth, in collaboration with The Body Shop International, will announce a major new global campaign calling for more youth voices in the halls of power. The Office of the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth is confidentially inviting interested journalists to attend a virtual launch event that will reveal the new campaign and the new research behind it, informed by the largest-ever survey undertaken by The Body Shop, covering 26 countries and over 27,000 respondents. This will be followed by a panel debate with leading youth activists addressing the question ‘What if young people ruled the world’, where we will discuss how to raise the voices of young people and increase youth representation in politics and public decision-making. The panel will include: Moderator: Versha Sharma, Editor in Chief of Teen Vogue (TBC) Jayathma Wickramanayake, UN Secretary-General's Envoy on Youth David Boynton, CEO of The Body Shop Gina Martin, Campaigner for equal rights and Ambassador for UN Women UK and Beyond Equality Campaigner, speaker and writer, Gina is an advocate for creating change in communities for equal rights. Her national campaign to make upskirting illegal and changing the English and Welsh law resulted in the Voyeurism Act."
Oh. Inner City Press these days daily covers the Federal courts, where it covered the trial that convicted on bribery charges Patrick Ho of CEFC China Energy, which sought to buy the oil company of Gulbenkian Foundation which paid Guterres.
But on July 3, 2018 Inner City Press was inside the UN, as an accredited journalist, putting questions to the Ambassador of Cameroon about his claims that Guterres in his 38th floor office never asking him about his government's killing of Anglophones, only about favors he could do while Cameroon was chair of the UN Budget Committee.
Inner City Press was roughed up and ousted, and had been banned since.
In July 2021 the law firm of Quinn Emanuel, pro bono, wrote on behalf of Inner City Press to Guterres' head of media accreditation Melissa Fleming, and to each executive committee member of the United Nations Correspondents Assocation, seeking a dialogue to get Inner City Press back into the UN.
There was no answer from these, who have all virtue-signaled about press freedom and WPFD since. Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric was asked about the Quinn Emanuel letter and confirmed receipt, saying he didn't know if it would be responded to. Video. It hasn't been.
Late in 2021 Quinn Emanuel sent a copy of the letter to the US State Department, through Laurel Rapp, asking the Department and US Mission to the UN and its Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield to ensure Inner City Press' re-entry into the UN.
No answer, nor to Inner City Press' direct request the the USUN Mission for access to ask questions on May 3, 2022. So now we publish the letter, on DocumentCloud, here.
Those in receipt of the first, friendly letter: melissa.fleming@un.org, marialuiza.viotti@un.org, mekel@un.org, malu@un.org, and UNCA
Valeria Robecco, ANSA News Agency, Nabil Abi Saab, Al-Araby, Jianguo Ma, Xinhua News Agency, Edith Lederer, Associated, Giampaolo Pioli, Quotidiano, Linda Fasulo, Ibtisam Azem, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed Newspaper, Ali Barada, France 24, Asharq Al-Awsat; Oscar Bolanos, OMB News, Sherwin Bryce-Pease, SABC South Africa - Alexander Hassanein, The Tokyo Shimbun, Maria Khrenova, TASS, Philippe Rater, Agence France-Presse, Kaori Yoshida, Nikkei, Betul Yuruk, Anadolu Agency at president@unca.com, valeria.robecco@gmail.com, nabisaab@gmail.com, mjg222888@gmail.com, elederer@ap.org, giampioli@aol.com, lindafasulo@gmail.com, ibtisam.azem@alaraby.co.uk, abarada@hotmail.com, ombyvozque@gmail.com, s.brycepease@gmail.com, alexander@tokyoshimbun.us, khrenova_m@tass.ru, philippe.rater@afp.com, kaori.yoshida@nex.nikkei.com, byuruk@aa.com.tr
And we will have more, much more, on this.
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