UN Used Cristina Gallach To Oust Inner City Press on Feb 19, Now She Says Tweets On It SINCE Feb 19 Justify Ouster: Kafka

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 2 -- The decision to throw Inner City Press out of the UN on February 19, on only two hours notice, was made by Spain's highest UN official, Under Secretary General of Public Information Cristina Gallach. Audio here.

   With seeming disdain for due process, Gallach never once spoke to Inner City Press before signing the letter to throw it out, to hear its explanation of why it sought to cover an event in the UN Press Briefing Room three weeks earlier onJanuary 29.

 Now on March 2 we can report that Gallach is worse than sources said: not only incompetent, but an outright censor. 

After throwing Inner City Press in the street on February 19 without once asking it about its attempt to cover the January 29 event in the UN Press Briefing Room, Gallach first dissembled to Nobel Prize laureate Jose Ramos Horta, that she'd done nothing to Inner City Press - then came up with a new strategy.

  Gallach would try to use Inner City Press' fight back against being censored as the rationale for what she had done.

  Inner City Press, even after being forcibly thrown out of the UN on Gallach's orders on February 19, and being told it was Banned from all UN premises on February 22, tried to speak with her on the evening of February 22. With witnesses present, Inner City Press urged a creative solution, with flexibility on both sides.

But there was none.

Now, Gallach is telling her interlocutors that it is Inner City Press' fight-back since, including tweets, that justifies what she did before Inner City Press issues a single tweet mentioning her.

This is Kafka-esque, and it is censorship. This should NOT be atop the UN Department of Public Information. 

  Gallach followed and fed an anonymous troll twitter account which more than 150 times parroted her position. But she is not responsible for it? This is the face of UN censorship.

  How was such a decision, contrary to due process and press freedom, made by the UN's communication chief? How did she get this job?

   When Spain put Gallach's name in contention for the USG DPI position, Inner City Press reported on her and two other short-list candidates, then acting chief Maher Nasser of Palestine and Romania's Permanent Representative Simona Miculescu. 

   At the time, many said Nasser was the most qualified. But because Saudi Arabia put forward its Deputy Permanent Representative and used the muscle it is showing on Yemen, Iran and now Lebanon to demand support, Nasser was not about to get the support of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) or the Arab Group.

   But many said Gallach was the worst interview, and had the least experience. They say - and Inner City Press has a question pending to confirm or deny - that prior to Spain putting Gallach forward to run the UN Department of Public Information with some 700 staff, the largest team Gallach had run had consisted of one-hundredth of that, more like SEVEN people.

  In most organization, such a person would never get the job. But this is the UN. Spain was about to take a two-year seat on the Security Council, and the Ban Ki-moon administration has a pattern of doling out high jobs to some of the countries coming on to the Council (less so the African countries), as a way of getting support for proposals it will have before the Council.

  And so Gallach, described as underprepared and the “worst interview” of all the candidates, was given the job by Ban Ki-moon.  Miculescu was given a consolation prize with the UN in Serbia. Nasser stayed on as a deputy to Gallach, seemingly not consulted even when Gallach, on February 19, decided to have a long time UN journalist thrown to the curb, on two hours notice.

  Prior to that - and separately requiring Gallach's recusal - Inner City Press had accurately reported the Gallach hobnobbed at the "South South Awards" with Frank Lorenzo, photo here, just before he was indicted for bribery at the UN. 

  This is why senior UN officials telling Inner City Press to "stay in touch with Cristina Gallach on this matter. She will keep me informed" is both Kafka-esque and indicative of the UN's inability to clean up or even look into corruption.

  There are a number of connections between those indicted for bribery and DPI and its partner in this, the UN Correspondents Association who event in the UN Press Briefing Room Inner City Press was seeking to cover on January 29, on corruption related issues: how indicted Ng Lap Seng was given a photo op with Ban Ki-moon by UNCA, after UNCA took money from Ng's South South News. This has yet to be answered either. 

  Or perhaps the ouster is the answer.

  When Ban Ki-moon imposed his most recent budget cuts, the Department hardest hit was Gallach's DPI. Staff complained she didn't fight for them; those to whom she made presentations in the UN's budget process called her woefully unprepared, “a joke,” one of them said.

   But to throw an investigative journalist into the street, without even coat or passport, to refuse to reconsider it even when contacted as Gallach was by such people as Nobel Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos Horta (she dissembled to him), a range of Ambassadors and even, privately andpublicly, by the President of the Security Council, is not a joke at all.

  When Business Insider wrote about the ouster, published on February 26, Gallach couldn't (be bothered) to give a quote: an unnamed DPI spokesperson said it was fine to throw out Inner City Press without even speaking with it or allowing an opportunity to be heard:

“When contacted for comment, the Office of the Undersecretary General for Communications and Public Information did not deny that Lee had never been questioned over the incident before his pass was revoked. 'In conducting its investigation into the incident on 29 January, [Department of Public Information] reviewed several videos of what happened, including footage that was taken by Mr. Lee and posted on his website,' a representative of the office wrote in an email to Business Insider. 'DPI also spoke at length with the Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General and officers from the UN Department of Safety and Security who were in attendance on 29 January. These steps were sufficient to determine that Mr. Lee's actions clearly infringed the guidelines that apply to all correspondents at the United Nations.'”

  Inner City Press asked UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric about this quote; he has yet to answer. In writing, Inner City Press has asked both Dujarric and Gallach about this: but questions submitted back on February 20 have yet to be answered.

  Both Gallach and Dujarric are, however, among the handful of followers of an anonymous troll Twitter accountwhich is defending both of their actions, including interestingly to journalists in Spain.

   Ban Ki-moon is slated to be in Spain on March 1. We'll have more on this.

UN Cristina Gallach's Kafka Letter to Oust ICP Defended & Presaged by Stephane Dujarric's False Letter for UNCA, UN Censorship Alliance

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 21 -- When the UN had Inner City Press physically thrown out of the building on February 19, with UN Security Deputy McNulty threatening twice to “turn you over to NYPD” saying Inner City Press was trespassing by being in the UN it has covered for ten years, the pretext was vagely alluded to in the first paragraph of UN official Cristina Gallach's Kafka-esque letter.

  UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric, who is now defending the decision Gallach made without once speaking to Inner City Press, has his own history with unappealable anti-Press letters.

  Two years ago on February 22, 2013, Gallach's predecessor Launsky-Tieffenthal convened a meeting between the insider UN Correspondents Association and the new Free UN Coalition for Access, co-founded by Inner City Press and another UNCA board member who quit UNCA for corruption.

  In the meeting, Inner City Press announced it would audio record it to have a record, since UNCA had already tried to get Dujarric to throw Inner City Press out of the UN. UNCA's then and now president Giampaolo Pioli had told Inner City Press to remove an article from the Internet or he would get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN (jump cut to today.)

  Inner City Press did tape the meeting, including temporary UNCA President Pamela Falk of CBS saying, He's taping, he's going to write about this and Inner City Press saying, Yes, that's true.

 But when Inner City Press did just that, publish an article with direct quotes from the meeting, Dujarric issued a counter-factual letter claiming that Inner City Press secretly taped the meeting and violated the same (UNCA crafted) rules Gallach is citing today.

  Inner City Press wrote that Dujarric's letter was counter-factual, andpublished the audio of itself saying openly, I am taping this meeting.

  Dujarric never rescinded his letter, and is now defending Gallach's letter, in which she without once speaking to Inner City Press purports to remove the resident correspondent accreditation it has had for eight years, for having sought to covering in the UN Press Briefing Room an event of... UNCA, at which the organization's role, for those who pay it money, it getting UN office space was discussed. Disgust. This is today's UN and it is UNacceptable.

 Gallach's letter cited and quoted from UN "Media Guidelines" that "when unexpected circumstances arise, the approach will be to avoid confrontation, maintain civility and find the fastest, safety and most secure acceptable solution. Those correspondents who violate the ground rules on access may have their accreditation withdrawn or suspended."

  Apparently Ms. Gallach, who has never spoken to Inner City Press about this before ruling, believes that by asserting a right to cover an event in the UN Press Briefing Room on Jan 29, Inner City Press violated this vague rule.

  By this logic, for example, journalist Jose Ramos who insisted on asking a question would be disaccredited and thrown out of the UN.

  Additionally, not only did UN Correspondents Association President Giampaolo Pioli in ordering Inner City Press to leave the UN Press Briefing Room says "You are mentally ill" - hardly obeying the command for civility - several UNCA board members cut taken to cutting off Inner City Press' questions in the UN briefings, and loudly commenting on them afterward.

  Reuters' Michelle Nichols, for example, said loudly "you're grasping at straws" as Inner City Press asked about the UN's interactions with indicted Frank Lorenzo (who has also interacted with Gallach, who should have been and should be recused). Story here; Dujarric's spokesperson office saw this, did nothing.

  AFP's Carole Landry, right after Inner City Press' question about when Spokesman Stephane Dujarric has "lent" out the UN Press Briefing Room as he did to French President Hollande - and to UNCA, unless Gallach was the lender -- commented loudly on and against the question, here.

  Don't those violate the rules? Are Reuters or AFP going to be ousted or have their offices taken? There are other media with smaller audiences than Inner City Press which have private offices, due to favoritism. Inner City Press doesn't make complaints under these rules. But Gallach, it seems, is only very selectively enforcing them. Violations by her (and Ban's UN's) "friends" are fine; by critics, alleged violations lead to immediate ouster without any due process. This is lawless.

  Inner City Press was told that "footage" of the UNCA event in the UN Press Briefing Room was reviewed, as if that relieved Gallach of any duty to allow Inner City Press to state its side of the story.

  First, it is strange that the UN would be videotaping a meeting of UNCA, journalists which ostensibly cover it. Are there UN camera in the big clubhouse the UN gives UNCA, too? Again, why didn't UNCA just hold its meeting in its large, UN-given clubhouse. This was unnecessary.

 By Gallach's logic, if even during a UN noon briefing some number of UNCA board members shouted for Inner City Press to leave, it should have to, to avoid confrontation. This is not journalism. Gallach's letter must be retracted.

  Gallach, who never once spoke to Inner City Press before having its UN pass deactivated and then ordering ouster on two hours notice, began her February 19 letter:

“I write with reference to an incident involving you that occurred on Friday, 29 January 2016 during the United Nations Correspondents Association Annual General Meeting.”

   As Inner City Press reported before, during and after that UNCA meeting, instead of being held in the large clubhouse the UN gives UNCA on the third floor, it was held in the UN Press Briefing Room.

  Inner City Press, and the Free UN Coalition for Access (FUNCA) contend that the Press is allowed in the UN Press Briefing Room. Contrary to or ignored by Gallach's letter, Inner City Press similarly declined to immediate leave a “private” briefing when UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric “lent” the UN Press Briefing Room to French President Francois Hollande and he tried to exclude all non-French journalist.

  Inner City Press stood up for the principle and was vindicated: the briefing was then opened to all journalists. It's called standing up for freedom of the press.

  But when Inner City Press tried to cover meeting in the same UN Press Briefing Room by UNCA, finding it newsworthy in that UNCA took tens of thousands of dollars from the South South News of now indicted Ng Lap Seng and Francis Lorenzo, somehow UNCA was given more exclusionary rights to privately use the UN Press Briefing Room than French President Hollande was.

   UNCA President Giampaolo Piolo loudly declared to Inner City Press, “You are mentally sick.” (This violates the UNCA-agreed Media Guidelines that Gallach cites, but Pioli has a private office those his articles, such as they are, concern celebrities like Morgan Freeman rather than the UN.)

  Inner City Press previously reported how Pioli, more of a landlord than a journalist, rented one of his family's Manhattan apartments to Palitha Kohona, Sri Lanka's ambassador to whom Pioli later granted a “UN Screen” of a Lankan war crimes denial film. Inner City Press wrote that was a conflict of interest.

   Similarly, here, Inner City Press has specifically reported on Lorenzo's association now only with UNCA but, as it happens, with Cristina Gallach. Gallach appeared with Lorenzo soon before his indictment. Yet Gallach did not, as she should have, recuse herself from ruling on the proposal to deactivate Inner City Press' UN pass and seize its files. This was an ethical breach on which we'll have more.

   Gallach, contacted by people such as Nobel Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos Horta, has attempted to falsely assuage their concerns saying she is “offering” a much reduced access status to Inner City Press in the UN (perhaps, some surmise, so UNCA could selling Inner City Press' office space -- UNCA openly tells people to join it because for the UNCA dues money, you can “get” a UN office.

  Inner City Press quit UNCA, finding it a corrupt organization, and now faces having its longtime office space taken to be re-sold by UNCA. It is UNacceptable. We'll have more on this.

The UN on February 19, after Inner City Press asked about UN inaction in South Sudan and Burundi and financial irregularities, was handed a letter to leave the UN by 5 pm. Letter here.

  While Inner City Press was writing up a UN Security Council meeting on Syria that went into the evening, and Periscope broadcasting, UN Security guards walked up, grabbed Inner City Press' laptop, blocked its Periscope camera and turned off the livestream. Video here.

  Then eight UN Security officers led by Deputy Chief McNulty tore off Inner City Press' UN ID badge and carted off Inner City Press' laptop and camera, returning these by throwing them on the sidewalk of First Avenue. Audio here.

 They did not allow Inner City Press to get coat or sweater, or the files in its office. No provision was made for this.

  The ejection letter was signed by the Under Secretary General for Public Information Cristina Galach of Spain but ultimately Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is in charge. Ban and his chief of staff Edmond Mulet and Deputy SG Jan Eliasson were all written to with details as this took place.

  USG Gallach's office, Darrin Farrant in charge, merely "took note" of questions about and criticism of the lack of due process. Gallach did not respond to email, even from Nobel Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos-Horta, here.

  When Inner City Press was thrown out onto First Avenue, standing waiting, laughing and filming, was Voice of America's Margaret Besheer and another board member of the UN Correspondents Association, whose president Giampaoli Pioli told Inner City Press if it didn't remove a (truthful) article about his screening of a war crimes denial film for a tenant of his, Sri Lanka's then ambassador Palitha Kohona, he would get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN.

  But who is running this asylum? Ban Ki-moon, his spokesman also involved Stephane Dujarric (who threw Inner City Press out of the UN Press Briefing Room on January 29, also trying to turn off ICP's Periscoping phone), and, some surmise, some who don't like Inner City Press' questions. We'll have more on this.

  The pretext was Inner City Press three weeks earlier seeking to cover a meeting in the UN Press Briefing Room by an organization which has taken money from now indicted Ng Lap Seng and Frank Lorenzo's South SOuth News, then gave Ng Lap Seng a photo op with Ban.

(As Inner City Press reported, Gallach attended the South South Awards with Frank Lorenzo, photo here, just before his indictment.  She should have been recused from any decision-making on this.)

  UN Security demanded ICP's pass - and later tore it off.

Inner City Press Covered UNCA in UN Press Briefing Room About Lorenzo Funds, Now Lorenzo-Associated Cristina Gallach Ousts ICP, Should Be Recused

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 20 -- When the UN had Inner City Press physically thrown out of the building on February 19, with UN Security Deputy McNulty threatening twice to “turn you over to NYPD” saying Inner City Press was trespassing by being in the UN it has covered for ten years, the pretext was vagely alluded to in the first paragraph of UN official Cristina Gallach's Kafka-esque letter.

  Gallach, who never once spoke to Inner City Press before having its UN pass deactivated and then ordering ouster on two hours notice, enforced by eight UN Security officers who took Inner City Press' Periscope broadcasting phone and cut off the live-stream prior to making their threats, said

“I write with reference to an incident involving you that occurred on Friday, 29 January 2016 during the United Nations Correspondents Association Annual General Meeting.”

   As Inner City Press reported before, during and after that UNCA meeting, instead of being held in the large clubhouse the UN gives UNCA on the third floor, it was held in the UN Press Briefing Room.

  Inner City Press, and the Free UN Coalition for Access (FUNCA) contend that the Press is allowed in the UN Press Briefing Room. Contrary to or ignored by Gallach's letter, Inner City Press similarly declined to immediate leave a “private” briefing when UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric “lent” the UN Press Briefing Room to French President Francois Hollande and he tried to exclude all non-French journalist.

  Inner City Press stood up for the principle and was vindicated: the briefing was then opened to all journalists. It's called standing up for freedom of the press.

  But when Inner City Press tried to cover meeting in the same UN Press Briefing Room by UNCA, finding it newsworthy in that UNCA took tens of thousands of dollars from the South South News of now indicted Ng Lap Seng and Francis Lorenzo, somehow UNCA was given more exclusionary rights to privately use the UN Press Briefing Room than French President Hollande was.

   UNCA President Giampaolo Piolo loudly declared to Inner City Press, “You are mentally sick.” (This violates the UNCA-agreed Media Guidelines that Gallach cites, but Pioli has a private office those his articles, such as they are, concern celebrities like Morgan Freeman rather than the UN.)

  Inner City Press previously reported how Pioli, more of a landlord than a journalist, rented one of his family's Manhattan apartments to Palitha Kohona, Sri Lanka's ambassador to whom Pioli later granted a “UN Screen” of a Lankan war crimes denial film. Inner City Press wrote that was a conflict of interest.

   Similarly, here, Inner City Press has specifically reported on Lorenzo's association now only with UNCA but, as it happens, with Cristina Gallach. Gallach appeared with Lorenzo soon before his indictment. Yet Gallach did not, as she should have, recuse herself from ruling on the proposal to deactivate Inner City Press' UN pass and seize its files. This was an ethical breach on which we'll have more.

   Gallach, contacted by people such as Nobel Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos Horta, has attempted to falsely assuage their concerns saying she is “offering” a much reduced access status to Inner City Press in the UN (perhaps, some surmise, so UNCA could selling Inner City Press' office space -- UNCA openly tells people to join it because for the UNCA dues money, you can “get” a UN office.

  Inner City Press quit UNCA, finding it a corrupt organization, and now faces having its longtime office space taken to be re-sold by UNCA. It is UNacceptable. We'll have more on this.

The UN on February 19, after Inner City Press asked about UN inaction in South Sudan and Burundi and financial irregularities, was handed a letter to leave the UN by 5 pm. Letter here.

  While Inner City Press was writing up a UN Security Council meeting on Syria that went into the evening, and Periscope broadcasting, UN Security guards walked up, grabbed Inner City Press' laptop, blocked its Periscope camera and turned off the livestream. Video here.

  Then eight UN Security officers led by Deputy Chief McNulty tore off Inner City Press' UN ID badge and carted off Inner City Press' laptop and camera, returning these by throwing them on the sidewalk of First Avenue. Audio here.

 They did not allow Inner City Press to get coat or sweater, or the files in its office. No provision was made for this.

  The ejection letter was signed by the Under Secretary General for Public Information Cristina Galach of Spain but ultimately Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is in charge. Ban and his chief of staff Edmond Mulet and Deputy SG Jan Eliasson were all written to with details as this took place.

  USG Gallach's office, Darrin Farrant in charge, merely "took note" of questions about and criticism of the lack of due process. Gallach did not respond to email, even from Nobel Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos-Horta, here.

  When Inner City Press was thrown out onto First Avenue, standing waiting, laughing and filming, was Voice of America's Margaret Besheer and another board member of the UN Correspondents Association, whose president Giampaoli Pioli told Inner City Press if it didn't remove a (truthful) article about his screening of a war crimes denial film for a tenant of his, Sri Lanka's then ambassador Palitha Kohona, he would get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN.

  But who is running this asylum? Ban Ki-moon, his spokesman also involved Stephane Dujarric (who threw Inner City Press out of the UN Press Briefing Room on January 29, also trying to turn off ICP's Periscoping phone), and, some surmise, some who don't like Inner City Press' questions. We'll have more on this.

  The pretext was Inner City Press three weeks earlier seeking to cover a meeting in the UN Press Briefing Room by an organization which has taken money from now indicted Ng Lap Seng and Frank Lorenzo's South SOuth News, then gave Ng Lap Seng a photo op with Ban.

(As Inner City Press reported, Gallach attended the South South Awards with Frank Lorenzo, photo here, just before his indictment.  She should have been recused from any decision-making on this.)

  UN Security demanded ICP's pass - and later tore it off.

As Ban Ki-moon Launches Book with Tom Plate, Kim Sook's Missile Joke, Sri Lanka in the Princeton Club: How the UN Works

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 12 -- The UN's story should be better told. That was the stated goal when the idea for Tom Plate's “Conversations with Ban Ki-moon” was born, in 2010, at Singapore's Mission to the UN.

   Plate had profiled Lee Kuan Yew as his first “Giant of Asia” and let it be known that he saw Ban as a future Giant in his series.

   Fifteen hours of interviewing later, a smallish 236-page book was belatedly launched Tuesday night at the Princeton Club in Manhattan. 

  The crowd included some press, some students from Loyola Marymount where Plate has taught for the last three years, and Permanent Representatives from the UK, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Kazakhstan and South Korea. 

  Ambassador Kim Sook, saying he's known Ban for thirty years, joked that he prefers book launches to missile launches. The word armistice, however, was not used.

  Ban said when he read the first draft of the book, it seemed to him too light hearted, like EZ-Listening music. But, he said, it might work in letting people know how the UN works.

  And how does the UN work? Earlier on Tuesday, Ban met for more than two hours with the Group of 77, mostly about “post-2015 development” but also his delayed plan for mobility, which has been opposed by staff, at least in New York. 

  Ban used the word “selfish” in referring to some of this opposition; this was followed by a Staff Union vote of No Confidence. This was not mentioned Tuesday night. But Ban's Under Secretary General for Management, Yukio Takasu of Japan, was in attendance.

   How does the UN work? Also present was the Ambassador of Sri Lanka, Palitha Kohona. The UN's failure to speak and act while 40,000 civilians were killed in Sri Lanka in 2009 is one of the UN's biggest failures under Ban, among with its unexplained dismissal of claims for bringing cholera into Haiti.

  The anti-Tamil impulse of Sri Lanka's ruling family was in fact raised by Lee Kuan Yew in Plate's first Giant of Asia book.

   But what's been done since? Ban recently accepted what's called a “whitewash” report about Sri Lanka from Japan's Ambassador Nishida, along with Bangadesh's Ambassador Monem, Kohona, the Permanent Representative of Romania and the Deputy Permanent Representative of Nigeria.

   The UN didn't release the report, which Ban went on to praise when asked in Geneva about Sri Lanka. And Ambassador Nishida, when Inner City Press asked for the report, said it would first be given to all member states.

   Kohona on Tuesday in the Princeton Club's lobby told Inner City Press this hand-over took place last week, but not in the UN -- in the Japanese mission. It seems timed to counteract the belated talk of accountability at the Human Rights Council in Geneva. This is how the UN works: Giants of Asia, indeed.

   Hardly mentioned Tuesday night was Africa, where most of the UN's work is. On March 5 Inner City Press asked Ban, at the Security Council stakeout, about inaction on 126 rapes in Minova by the Congolese Army, which the UN supports.

  After the rapes, under Ban's stated Human Rights Due Diligence Policy, the UN support was to have stopped. But it still hasn't.

   Two days later his Department of Peacekeeping Operations, led for the fourth time in a row by a Frenchman -- this is how the UN works -- offered belated spin to friendlier journalists about threatening two unidentified units of the Congolese Army with loss of support if they don't prosecute by an unspecified deadline.

  So has Ban allowed his Human Rights Due Diligence Policy to be less than meaningful, under France's Under Secretary General for Peacekeeping Herve Ladsous?

   Inner City Press' critique of this has given rise to a formal but undisclosed complaint against it, in a Kafka-esque system without rules. The head of the Ban's Department of Public Information was in attendance Tuesday night, and quite polite. 

  But despite requests, including from New York Civil Liberties Union then the new Free UN Coalition for Access, there are still no due process rules for journalists at the UN. We will have more on this, how the UN does not work.

   We will also have more about the book, about mobility, Sri Lanka, Africa, Asia and Haiti. Watch this site.

Absent from Press Q&A on Syria, UNCA Officials Conceal Complaint Information, Kafka-esque

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 27 -- Amid a series of press stakeouts on Syria on Sunday at the UN, in the parallel world of the UN Correspondents Association's top officials, the "urgent" move to expel Inner City Press persisted without disclosure.

  This is a case of big wire services seeking to use a supposed journalistic organization to expel a smaller media they have used.

  UNCA President Giampaulo Pioli, who on May 25 issued a notice of a May 29 session to appoint a "Board of Examination" to try to expel Inner City Press, did not come to the UN to cover the Security Council session on the killings in Houla.

  His Vice President Lou Charbonneau of Reuters, who on May 21 was bylined on a Reuters story stealing without credit an Inner City Press exclusive of March 28 that US official Jeffrey Feltman would come to work for the UN, did come to the UN and even sat at the multiple stakeouts. 

  But he did not ask any questions, preferring to use the information gleaned by the questions of others.

   Foreign Policy's The Cable, for example, credited Inner City Press, but Reuters did not. At the stakeout on Sunday, a Russian UN correspondent thanked Inner City Press for another exclusive report which he said he'd used and credited.

  Charbonneau has said that he has a POLICY of not crediting Inner City Press exclusives, a statement that Reuters has yet to respond to.

  For the record, Inner City Press asked questions of and got answers from the UN Ambassadors of the UK, Syria, Germany, Russia and France -- whose Mission's tool Tim Witcher of Agence France Presse was seen near the stakeout, but who asked no on the record questions.

  Nor did Pioli respond to Inner City Press' sixth request that he provide the names of the five UNCA Executive Committee members he said had in writing requested the Board of Examination to try to expel Inner City Press.

  Since under UNCA's rules this Board must be "impartial," it seems clear that none of the five complainants, nor in context any correspondent which has used an Inner City Press exclusive without credit, can be on the Board of Examination.

  It is also clear that Inner City Press, as defendant, must have a role in selecting the Board, including making nominations and striking nominees if necessary for cause.

None of this is possible without known who are the complainants, and the supposed victims. But despite Inner City Press explaining just this in its request to Pioli, no names have been provided.

   Presumably Charbonneau, who also filed a stealth complaint with the UN Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit which controls media access to the UN, is one of the five complainants. Why not just give the names, then? Under his behind the scenes control of the UNCA Executive Committee, UNCA has become positively Kafka-esque. Watch this site.

At UN, Ocampo Turns O-Kafka, Threatens Any Denier With ICC Prosecution, Sri Lanka Silence

By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/icc1okafka120409.html

UNITED NATIONS, December 4 -- Can an "active denial" of war crimes, particularly by a diplomat, itself be an international crime? Luis Moreno Ocampo, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, told the Security Council on Friday that it can. In prepared remarks, he said "My Office is considering the criminal responsibility of Sudanese officials who actively deny and dissimulate crimes."

Inner City Press asked Ocampo if this threat of prosecution applies to public denials of war crimes by the Ambassador of Sudan -- or by Palitha Kohona, the Ambassador of Sri Lanka which has been accused, most recently by the U.S. State Department, of presumptive war crimes. Video here, from Minute 13:23.

Ocampo said he "can't comment on other situations" -- that is, on anything except Darfur. He then drew analogies between Sudan and its president and his staff to Goebbels and Radio Milles Collines in Rwanda. This last, however, active told listeners where to find Tutsis, and urged that they be killed.

Ocampo told the Council that even a "denial of crimes" could be a crime. To many this seems an abuse of power, as well as Kafka-esque. The prosecutor accuses a defendant of a crimes, and them threatens to issue further indictments for any denial of the crime. If controversial prosecutors like Rudy Giuliani did this, civil libertarians and liberals would denounce it. What will be the reaction to Ocampo's statement?

A representative of Human Rights Watch who stood at the media stakeout Friday morning was dubious of Ocampo's claims in this regard, but otherwise supported Ocampo's enterprise. Bashir did not travel to Nigeria or Turkey. He also lauded the presence in the Council of Stephen Rapp, who signed the U.S. report on presumptive war crimes in Sri Lanka.

Inner City Press asked Rapp in what capacity he was at the Council. As part of the U.S. delegation, he said. The President of the Assembly of the States Parties to the Rome Statute governing the International Criminal Court, Ambassador of tiny Liechtenstein, on December 3 told Inner City Press that the U.S. is getting closer to joining the ICC.

Footnote: Inner City Press asked Liechtenstein's Ambassador about the case of John Djimandja, a local UN staffer in the Congo who says he fell under death threats after urging disarmament by militias including one whose leader is now on trial in the Hague.

Should the OCC provide protection to such witnesses, even if they do not end up testifying before the ICC? If you do not testify you are not a witness, he replied. Actually, if you see something you are a witness. And shouldn't the UN protect its own staff? Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/icc1okafka120409.html