By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - ESPN
UN GATE, July 8 – With Brazil assuming presidency of the UN Security Council on July 1, 2022 on June 30 Inner City Press wrote to the Brazilian Mission to the UN to request in advance access to its July 1 press conference by Ambassador Ronaldo Costa Filho.
Inner City Press asked asked the Brazilian Mission, and the UN, about the murders in Brazil of journalist Dom Phillips and indigenous rights leader Bruno Pereira. No answer at all.
Instead, soon after the bogus faux "press briefing," the Brazil Mission deleted its Twitter accounts, see here.
On July 8, under Brazilian presidency, the UN Security Council failed on Syria - with Inner City Press still banned, and no answers. See videos here (Norway), here (vote), here (UAE) and here (after).
From US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, also inactive on UN banning US-based Press, this: "shipments of vital therapeutics, like Plumpy’nut, will stop. Hopes will be dashed. This is not a moment to mince words." But it is, apparently, a time for continued censorship at the UN. We will continue to follow and report on all this.
In the July 1 circus, Ronaldo Costa Filho took questions from Chinese state media, about food and climate change. On this, he said the IPCC says the connection between climate change and conflict is very weak. No one said anything. He said he wouldn't promise to doany stakeouts. To this has the UN sunk. Here's the program of work. We will keep asking, and we will report on it.
Inner City Press wrote to the Brazil Mission including distri.delbrasonu@itamaraty.gov.br and fabio.coelho@itamaraty.gov.br: "This is a timely request that you send Inner City Press the pass code(s) to access your UNSC Presidency Program of Work press briefing, as you've announced on Twitter (I notice your Mission follows @InnerCityPress, along with 149,999 others, on Twitter).
Please confirm receipt of this email and provide the WebEx codes or other way to access, immediately. I have questions to ask on what you will do this month about the conflicts in Ukraine, Haiti, Sudan, DRC, Cameroon, Yemen and Libya - and on recent cases of sexual abuse and exploitatoin by UN peacekeepers on Inner City Press first reported - Inner City Press is asking to be provided with access / the passwords to your Brazil mission's stakeouts and press conferences this month with Ronaldo Costa Filho as UNSC President. Given your stated focus on the rule of law, you should ensure due process (and access) for Press covering the UN. Please note that Inner City Press and I participate in the WebEx briefings of, for example, the IMF on March 31, 2022, here
As you all have now moved the Council back into its Chamber, either way I would also like to ask you to instruct MALU / USG-DGC Melissa Fleming to allow me to enter to cover it, for Inner City Press. She has not responded to this letter (your Brazil mission should) Please immediately confirm receipt, and provide the passcode or state why not.
But by the morning of July 1, nothing.
Inconsistent, to say the least, with Brazil'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 Brazilian Mission and Brazil 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 Brazil and the Brazilian Mission to provide access.
Watch this site.
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