UN of Guterres Claims Will Monitor No Show Sycophants As It Bans Inner City Press 297th Day

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive CJR Video

UNITED NATIONS GATE, April 27 – How corrupt and hypocritical is the United Nations of Secretary General Antonio Guterres? So much so that after cultivating a press corps including no-show sycophants while banning the Press which asks questions, now his UN on April 26 has said the sycophants have to swipe in. They don't have to produce any articles or, God forbid, questions UN corruption. (On which, April 25 Inner City Press interview, from 44:40.)

But Guterres' team has sent the below, including to no-shows Giampaolo Pioli and others, on which Inner City Press banned now 297 days for questioning Guterres' corruption on China and failure on Cameroon will be following up, beyond the Periscope videos it streamed to show the abuse before Guterres and Alison Smale had it roughs up, ousted and banned: "From: Tal Mekel, mekel [at] un.orgDate: Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 2:10 PM Subject: Note on attendance To:    Dear resident correspondents,  As you know, MALU is responsible for ensuring the offices assigned to media outlets are being used in accordance with the requirements and agreements (on average 2-3 times a week).  To that end, we have long been monitoring by visiting the offices at various times of day.  Due to the unpopularity of these check-ins, we plan to implement a less intrusive system, which we believe will be better for all parties.  In the next few weeks, we will place several card readers for use of resident correspondents on the 3rd and 4th floors, and in the MALU office.  These readers are completely separate from the security access system. However, we will still be able to use the UN ID to swipe, for your convenience. Your IDs will need to be registered by MALU once a year, upon renewal of the pass.  We don’t expect correspondents to swipe every time you arrive or leave UNHQ – swiping once during the day will suffice to demonstrate you were at UNHQ.  The devices will only register basic information about time of swipe, which will only be seen by MALU.  The goal is not to monitor movements, but just to help verify over a period of time that journalists with offices, or are on the wait-list, are fulfilling their obligations.  This will help us allocate office space equitably.  We will update you in the coming days to register the IDs. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.  Have a nice weekend, Tal     Tal Mekel  Chief, Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit  Department of Global Communications  United Nations  Room S-250." 

Inner City Press is informed that, for once, there is push back. Raghida Dergham who brags about never having to go to the UN is predicted to be up in arms, just as she protested above Mekel and got to keep a solo office S315 though she never goes. Then there's the former UN Correspondents Association (1986) president and Egyptian state correspondent, Sanaa Youssef of Akbar al Youm to whom the UN gave Inner City Press' shared work space but who has yet to ask a single question. And another former UNCA president Giampaoli Pioli, who promised to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN for its accurate reporting on his conflict of interest in renting one of his Manhattan apartments to Sri Lanka's Ambassador and alleged war criminal (in the white flag killings case) Palitha Kohona then giving a "UN screening" to his propaganda film, rarely comes in. He still maintains S-422A-a, just as one of his henchmen has S-348B (there are more). We'll have more - will the UN, which claimed it threw Inner City Press out for daring to report on the UN Budget Committee when it actually met, at 10 pm, follow through on this? Watch this site.

   In the midst of Inner City Press' questioningin 2018 about Guterres' links to now convicted UN bribery Patrick Ho's China Energy Fund Committee and Guterres' failures on Cameroonand elsewhere, his UN Security twice roughed up Inner City Press on June 22 and July 3, 2018. 

Then after Inner City Press filed a New York Police Department complaint against the UN and its Lieutenant Ronald E. Dobbins, none of its written questions to UN Security chief Peter Drennen and Guterres were answered. There are no due process rights for journalists in the UN of Guterres. On April 15, a year minus a day since the UN accredited Inner City Press on 16 April 2018, Inner City Press submitted a formal application and letter for re-accreditation, including in light of the guilty verdict and sentencing against Patrick Ho of CEFC (video here), financial links to which Guterres has failed to disclose and has for 287days sought to censor to conceal. 

On the morning of April 17, without any reasoning or explanation, this: "Greetings Matthew LEE from ICP     INNER CITY PRESS,  Your media accreditation request, with reference no: M66561081, has been declined." Just as there was no hearing, noaction on assault by UN DSS Lieutenant Ronald E. Dobbins, and not appeals process, no reasons. Absolute lawless corruption.

The letter was sent to Guterres, his USG Alison Smale and her "personal assistant"Alison Corbet, his chief of staff Maria Luiza Viotti and her staffer Eihab Omaish, his Deputy SG Amina J. Mohammed and her chief of staff Nelson Muffuh, as well as to PGA Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garces, her chief of staff  KwabenaOseidanquah, her spokesperson Monica Grayley and staffers Nadia Kalb and Raquel Martins, to MALU chief Tal Mekel and others still to be named  along with a simple request for confirmation of receipt. Even this they had not done, a full 38 hours later. From what's been submitted: "A year ago on 16 April 2018 I was re-accredited to enter and cover the United Nations, as for many years before. Then I asked more and more questions about the Patrick Ho / CEFC China Energy UN bribery scandal, about the Secretary General, about Cameroon - and on 22 June 2018 I was pushed out of the UN Visitors Lobby while other non-resident correspondents remained there.    On 3 July 2018 as I covered the UN Budget Committee meetings as I have for years, I was physically roughed up by UN DSS Lt Ronald Dobbins and another who refused to give his name. On July 5 I was told I could not enter the UN and this remains the case, with no hearing and no appeal.     Now just less than a year since I was accredited, before the above and other facts of record, I am submitting this formal application for accreditation which you grant to correspondents who report far less, and far less critically, on the UN than Inner City Press.    It is particularly imperative that Inner City Press be allowed to enter and attend the noon briefing as hundreds of my questions have gone unanswered despite USG Smale's assurance to UNSR David Kaye, and Spokesman Dujarric's on camera assurance.     

Beyond the hundreds of articles covering the UN since the arbitrary ouster of 3 July 2018, for the record:  March 29, 2019, Hong Kong TV documentary on Patrick Ho CEFC, Inner City Press in front of UN and SDNY...

   For years Guterres received money as a board member of the Calouste Galbenkian Foundation, which despite its name is the 100% owner of Partex Oil and Gas. Partex has operations in Angola, Abu Dhabi, Brazil, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Oman and Portugal. It was to a Portuguese court that Guterres, while justifying no listing some of his income, disclosed in 2016 that he was paid at least € 2735 per month for his position with the Gulbenkian Foundation.
   But while a now deleted Foundation web page (archived here) stated that Guterres continued with Gulbenkian into 2018, Guterres did not list it on his most recent, and so far lone, UN Public Financial Disclosure, which covered 2016 ("Disclosing financial and other interests for the 2016 reporting year"). 

  So why did Guterres disclose his position with the Club of Madrid, but not with the Gulbenkian Foundation / Partex Oil and Gas?  Inner City Press has a right to re-enter and pursue these questions.

After New York Times, UN Gives Egypt State Media Which Links UN Journalist to Morsi Inner City Press' Office

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 19 -- For ten years as Inner City Press covered the UN in ever greater detail, showing Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's Herve Ladsous' inept overseeing and cover up of sexual abuse and exploitation bypeacekeepers, disparate treatment in Mali, dalliance withgenocide in Sri Lanka and prospectively Burundi, impunityfor cholera deaths in Haiti and until now for UN lead poisoning in Kosovo and cravenly pro-Saudi position on Yemen amid the airstrikes, it was never thrown out of the UN. 

Now it has been, and even as groups like the Government Accountability Project tell Ban to reverse the eviction and give Inner City Press back its long time office and Resident Correspondent pass, Ban's UN tellingly move to award Inner City Press' office to Egypt state media Al-Akhbar / Akhbar Elyoum.  Tweeted photograph here.

On May 19, a sign for "Al Akhbar Yom" went up on Inner City Press' office - Inner City Press has STILL never seen the correspondent being given the stolen office. The UN says Resident Correspondents must be at the UN three days a week, but Inner City Press has never seen this person, former UN Correspondents Association president Sanaa Youssef, much less asking a question in the UN noon briefing. 

Scribes speaking off the record according to the New York Times of May 14 "accused [ICP] of printing gossip, rumors." That UNCA's president rented an apartment to Palitha Kohona then granted his request to screenin the UN his government's war crimes denial film is no rumor or gossip. 

But Akhbar Elyom, to which Gallach's and Ban's MALU and UNCA have given Inner City Press' office, not only gets journalists in Egypt attested - it targets, with a "Muslim Brotherhood" smear, a journalist who works right in the UN.Arabic article here. 

This is the journalism that Ban Ki-moon and his Cristina Gallach want and reward. By taking away Inner City Press' office, it is now required to have a minder and is told to not ask diplomats questions. This is censorship.

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Akhbar Elyom has been used to finger for imprisonment non-state journalists in Egypt. For example, in July 2015 Aboubakr Khallaf, the founder and head of the independent Electronic Media Syndicate (EMS), “was arrested after a news article was published by the government-owned daily Akhbar Elyoum.” (Article in Arabic here.) 

According to CPJ, Khallaf's EMS “trains and supports journalists who work online in Egypt. The syndicate operates independently from the state-recognized Egyptian Journalists Syndicate... 
The local press freedom group Journalists Against Torture and the local Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTE) said Khallaf was also accused of 'taking pictures and displaying artistic works without a license,' among other allegations. A 1998 executive order states that individuals conducting audio and audiovisual work must have a license from the Ministry of Culture. According to AFTE, the accusation is in connection with Khallaf photographing the funeral of Hisham Barakat, Egypt's prosecutor general who was assassinated late last month."

There are many echoes of this in Ban's UN: as simply one example Ban's Under Secretary General for Public Information Cristina Gallach telling Inner City Press it takes photographs of things that "are not newsworthy." There are more, and more examples of Akbar Elyom. 

Only when it questioned Ban's and its PR official CristinaGallach's roles in the John Ashe, Ng Lap Seng and Francis Lorenzo UN bribery scandal did Gallach order Inner City Press ousted then evicted, and now try to give its office to an Egyptian media which rarely or never asked questions. Ban Ki-moon claimed “That is not my decision,” but that is not true.

  The New York Times on May 14 covered the story. But they did not in their long process report, because it happened at the end, that Ban Ki-moon and Gallach are moving to give Inner City Press' long time office to Egyptian state media, Al Akhbar / Akhbar El-Yom / Akher Saa, to a correspondent Sanaa Youssef who most even on the UN press floor have never seen. 

Her "in" seems to be that she was a previous president of the UN Correspondents Association, now become the UN's Censorship Alliance. As one respected usual UN interlocutor put it, "it would be a hugely negative symbolic step for Egyptian state media to replace Inner City Press in the UN." 

 A longtime UN correspondent who spotted her moving in on Inner City Press' office noted she had not been seen before; the name was confirmed by UN Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit, which refused to provide the waiting list or describe the rationale. 

But this is Ban's and Gallach's UN (click here for a Spanish take on Gallach's tenure.) We are beginning to report this now because it has proven nearly impossible to reach Al Akhbar / Akhbar Al Yom - the telephone numbers listed online are disconnected, or private homes; the correspondent at UNCA address has been unresponsive. The absurdity of this has been directly raised to Ban Ki-moon, his Deputy and Chief of Staff with enough time to stop it. We'll see. 

  For now from the NYT we note this quote: “It’s not exactly the same access,’’ Mr. Dujarric said, “but if he has an issue, there is a staff of media liaisons to help him resolve the problem and get where he needs to go.”

  This is false. As Inner City Press has raised to Ban Ki-moon, "even when begrudgingly accompanied by a staff member of your Spokesperson's office, UN Security refused to allow me through the turnstile onto the second floor of Conference Building. I have been told not to ask questions of diplomats, just after you came out of ECOSOC and even with a MALU minder / escort with me, a UN Security official stood directly in front of me, apparently so I couldn't even try to ask you a question. This is censorship."  We await response.

    UN Correspondents Association boss Giampaolo Pioli lied, but at least on the record. (He rented one of his Manhattan apartments to Palitha Kohona then granted Kohona's request, as Sri Lanka's Ambassador, to screen his government's war crimes denial film in the UN. Then Pioli told Inner City Press to take its story about it off the Internet or be thrown out of the UN, which Gallach and Ban did: UN Censorship Alliance.)

In any event, who is a rarely present boss of an ostensible Correspondents Association (morphing into the UN's Censorship Alliance) to lobby for the ouster of an investigative journalist so that his office can be handed to a never present former UNCA president - a representative of state owned media who never asks questions? This too has been raised and we await response.

  What's next? Is it acceptable for the UN to throw out a critical journalist writing four to eight stories a day, while leaving in people who write little, and ask nothing? Is Ban Ki-moon killing the UN? Watch this site.

The UN is now both corrupt -- a half a dozen indictments and counting, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon cavorting with the indicted and his team covering it up -- retaliatory and badly run. 

Now the UN is moving to give away Inner City Press' long time office as retaliation for its seeking to cover the bribery and corruption scandal, including  trying to cover a meeting in the UN Press Briefing Room of the UN Correspondents Association (UNCA), a group which took money from the indicteds' company, Ban Ki-moon's “Communications” chief Cristina Gallach threw Inner City Press out of the UN on February 19. 

So to whom does the UN seek to give Inner City Press' office away? A former UNCA President, who it seems has not asked any question, much less a critical question, in the UN Press Briefing Room or stakeout in quite some time. 

Inner City Press has in the past defended correspondents when the UN sought late in their careers to move them along, and is treading lightly for now: perhaps this former UNCA President didn't know the history here. 

(The current UNCA website doesn't even list its past Presidents, perhaps wisely: it seems to be a Year Zero operation.) 

But what is the UN's rationale of giving away the office of a working, critical journalist to a former UNCA president who asks even fewer questions than the current UNCA president?

It's called retaliation, or some say, human shields. Who is responsible?

Audio hereBan, when asked, said “that is not my decision.” But he heard about the ouster and eviction in advance and ok-ed it.

On April 16, the acting chief of Gallach's “Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit Tal Mekel oversaw the eviction of Inner City Press' office, leaving five boxes of its files out on First Avenue. Video here.

Some in Ban's team indicated to Inner City Press its office would be left empty until its four month “purgatory” or punishment-for-reporting period was over. 

That was a lie: on May 13, after Inner City Press asked more questions about Ban's engagements with John Ashe and Francis Lorenzo - president of South South News which paid UNCA and still has a UN office - Inner City Press was informed that its long time office is being given out -- apparently, to a former President of UNCA.

   When Inner City Press asked to see the supposed waiting list, this was refused by Mekel. It is apparently entirely up to Gallach - or UNCA - who is given UN office space, without which one cannot access the UN Conference Building's second floor, see below. 

On May 13 as the UN Security Council began a meeting about Lebanon, the glass doors to enter the Council were locked. Apparenlty the UN can't afford one guard for a Security Council meeting, but won't provide information requested by the Press about Ban Ki-moon's endless and largely fruitless travel.

   Inner City Press, which covers the UN corruption scandal and was ousted then evicted by an official implicated in the scandal, Cristina Gallach -- see OIOS audit Paragraphs 37 to 40 and 20(b) -- with Ban Ki-moon's full knowledge, was unable to get to the Security Council stakeout. Its pass, cut by Gallach, won't open the turnstile at the other end of the stakeout. This week a guard there even refused to allow Inner City Press through to a stakeout with a staffer of the Spokesperson's office.

   Gallach, at least according to some paid to tweet for the UN, is in Washington. So Inner City Press undertook to document the restrictions and censorship. Another UN system spokesperson tried to undermine it, as did UN Security. They claimed everything is fine, even as Security Council Ambassadors asked them how can it be that the door is locked (and Press excluded). Some Security write-up began, sure to omit all of this. Watch this site - and see below.

While many try to insulate today's UN from the open corruption of the recent past of President of the General Assembly John Ashe, and of Francis Lorenzo who has pleaded guilty, there is continuity to this UN scandal. This includes a revival of the Ng Lap Seng's old "South South News" team, with El Salvador ex-Ambassador Carlos Garcia and others, even as those investigating this UN corruption are evicted and restricted, and those covering it up are rewarded. 

   Inner City Press has repeatedly asked Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Stephane Dujarric about Ban's appearance at an event sponsored by the Francis Lorenzo registered group Global Governance for the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Q&A videos here and here. 

Dujarric tried to answer about another group, then said Lorenzo's connection to the group isn't clear. Q&A video here.

   Well, now Inner City Press can report that the "Global Governance for the UN Sustainable Development Goals"event Ban attended was with indicted John Ashe, his wife Anilla Cherian's book launch. Video here.

 It featured speeches by Ban and by Francis Lorenzo, who in his speech named both GG-UNSDG and Global National Competitiveness Cooperation Organization for the UN, which sponsored the DPI-NGO conference last year at which Under Secretary General Cristina Gallach spoke.Q&A video here.

   How did this not show up in the UN's audit of l'affaireJohn Ashe and Ng Lap Seng? How did this book launch event get inserted into UNTV archives, run by Gallach's DPI? On the video, Ban and then Mrs. Ban are thanked by Ashe and then Anilla Cherian. The indictment details how over $1,000,000 was withdrawn from the PGA Accounts and transferred to the personal accounts of Ashe and of Anilla Cherian; no-show jobs are also described.

   Then there is the speech of Francis Lorenzo, how Anilla Cherian showed Ban the book even before Ashe. The UN has been trying to downplay or conceal Ban Ki-moon's contacts with Lorenzo, most recently saying it's unclear how Lorenzo is connected to a group that he, Lorenzo, register, and another one he founded. Those obfuscations cannot stand; separately, the retaliation is more and more clear. We'll have more on this.

As UN officials including Cristina Gallach, whoseinvolvement in the scandal is detailed in the UN's ownOffice of Internal Oversight Services audit at Paragraphs 37 to 40 and 20(b) have moved to evict Inner City Press  from the UN premises (video here, Courthouse News article here) and restrict its access, Inner City Press has been made aware of a revival of the South South News model, in organizations which retains ties to indicted Ng Lap Seng.   

And Gallach's Department of Public Information continues partnering with these organizations, even as DPI falls apart on Gallach's watch. The last NGO Conference at the UN, sponsored by South Korea among others, had as a sponsor and speaker the "Global National Competitiveness Cooperation Organization for the UN," one of four Sponsors of indicted Francis Lorenzo's Global Governance for the UN SDGs.  Gallach even spoke at the event.  

UN's Gallach Spins Censoring Inner City Press For Behavior As UNCA's Pioli Say "Asshole" at UNSC: Now What?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 26 -- On February 19 without once speaking to Inner City Press, UN Under Secretary General for Public Information Cristina Gallach order the Press to leave the UN, which it has covered for ten years, in two hours. Her letter cited an incident on January 29.

  In that “incident,” Inner City Press openly sought to cover a meeting in the UN Press Briefing Room of an organization which had taken money from South South News, whose honorary president Frank Lorenzo has pleaded guilty to bribery charges as his vice president Vivian Wang has been indicted and funder Ng Lap Seng -- given a photo op with Ban Ki-moon by UNCA - remains under house arrest.

To seek to cover such a meeting is journalism.

  By contrast, UNCA chief Giampaolo Pioli, who lobbied Gallach to throw Inner City Press out, came to the UN Security Council stakeout on Western Sahara and loudly and repeatedly called Inner City Press “an asshole.” Audio here.Gallach's February 19 letter citing some rule about civility. Will she enforce it on Pioli?

   After the Western Sahara meeting, Gallach tweeted to a questioner from New Zealand who asked, “why did you remove the accreditation of Inner City Press?” Gallach replied, photo here, that “I did not! ICP is fully accredited! Can report from UN.?His privilege to use office was taken out, due to misbehavior.” Photo of Gallach's tweet here.

  This is false. On March 21, Inner City Press was unable to reach the stakeout of the UN Security Council on Western Sahara as it had been able, until Gallach's decision of February 19. And on March 25, the moment Security Council president Gaspar Martins finished reading out the elements to the press - and Inner City Press but not the swearing UNCA boss Pioli asked him a question -- UN DPI staff told Inner City Press to leave the stakeout, even as diplomats remain.

  Inner City Press said that to report on the meeting, it need to speak to the diplomats, many of whom has in the past spoken with in on background. But now with its Gallach-reduced pass, DPI staff said Inner City Press required an “escort” or minder to remain on the second floor.

  What diplomat desiring to speak on background about Ban Ki-moon's questionable performance on Western Sahara would do so in view of a minder from Ban's Secretariat? It is FALSE that Inner City Press is fully accredited.

  Furthermore, the “misbehavior” repeatedly citing by Gallach illusory. UNCA should have have been trying to hold a “closed” meeting in the UN Press Briefing Room - even Francois Hollande could not do that - and the event was nowhere listed as closed. Inner City Press live tweeted and live streamed it openly, from the booth in the back to avoid the heckling of Pioli's gang.

  Dispositively, on March 23 UN Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq did nothing when two non interpreters were in the interpretation booth during the noon briefing. There is no clear rule, at least none that is enforced.

  But compared to this disagreement, isn't coming to the UN Security Council stakeout to loudly call another reporter “an asshole” misbehavior? Gallach's ruling must be reversed. Watch this site.

On March 24 as Inner City Press was staking out the UN Security Council meeting about Western Sahara and Morocco's ordering out of the UN Peacekeeping mission there, a figure rarely seen at the stakeout approached.

  Giampaolo Pioli the head of the UN Correspondents Association came over to where Inner City Press was typing and editing audio and video and said, “You're an asshole.”

   Moments later, Inner City Press now with its UN accreditation pass downgraded to Non-Resident Correspondent by UN Department of Public Information chief Cristina Gallach at the behest of Pioli went to ask UN Security not to lock the glass door to the Security Council before the Council's president spoke at the stakeout.

  As Inner City Press asked the guard not to lock the door to journalists, UNCA's Pioli again said, “You're an asshole. I'm telling you that you're an asshole. Quote me.” Audio here.

   What's behind this? How did a journalists club turn into a club against a journalist, and why? Beyond Pioli's financial relationship with Palitha Kohona, who as Sri Lanka's Ambassador to the UN Pioli unilaterally granted a "UN" screening of a war crimes denial film, there is for example the matter of South South News.

  South South News is depicted in the October 2015 criminal complaint against John Ashe, Ng Lap Seng, Frank Lorenzo and others as a vehicle for bribery, to the tune of $12 million.

  UNCA under Pioli took SSN's money, and gave its funding Ng Lap Sent a photo op with Ban Ki-moon. But Pioli's UNCA also gave South South News a "journalism award," and SSN in term featured videos of Pioli, here - and ofPioli's tenant Kohona, here.

SSN video at 0:29 features Lorenzo (guilty plea) and Wang (indicted)

   John Ashe's former spokesperson is a member of UNCA; a SSN anchor, too. These are among the reasons that Inner City Press sought -- facing retaliation - and seeks and will continue to seek to cover this corrupted organization, as part of the wider and expanding UN corruption scandal. Watch this site.

Pioli and his rental of one of his apartments to an accused war criminal, involved in Sri Lanka's notorious White Flag killings, then screening of his tenant's film, played a key role.

But there have been many enablers, among the Gulf and Western media on UNCA's board; there are been others to the very top of the UN who have benefited from and left unchecked this war on investigative journalism.

This as Pioli's UNCA took money from now-indicted Ng Lap Seng's South South News, gave SSN a journalism award and Ng a photo op with Ban Ki-moon. After after the indictments, Pioli was selling half-tables with Ban for $6,000 on Wall Street in December 2015. That Ban's UN tries to shield this from coverage is telling.

  To try to oust or wipe out coverage of failure in Sri Lanka and more recently Burundi and Yemen to name but two is, of course, convenient, as well as stopping or hindering aggressive coverage of the expanding UN scandal in this waning year.

  Inner City Press spoke and speaks out when Reuters took stories without credit, even claimed "exclusives" for things earlier published by Inner City Press. Reuters bureau chief made an anti-Press filing with the UN's Stephane Dujarric. Then when it was leaked, he wrote as Reuters to Google to get it blocked from Search, ostensibly as copyrighted. "His" reporter has been worse, in ways.

   Margaret Besheer of Voice of America, who after being exposed in 2012 and her bosses saying in writing theirattempt to oust Inner City Press for her was wrong -- is at it again.  She was standing pre-positioned at the UN gate on February 19, 2016 when Inner City Press was physically thrown out. These are tax dollars at work, violating the First Amendment.

  There are more - former AFP, the current ones hardly better - and others who just follow along. Now their "leader" Pioli has come to the stakeout, not to report anything - he rarely does - but to loudly call a critic, who actually writes stories, an "asshole." And not one of them did anything. At the UN the journalists' club has become a club against a journalist.

Photo of Pioli at UNCA Ball, credit UN Photo/Amanda Voisard
 
  Inner City Press replied that it believed and believes Pioli is corrupt, that he took rent money from Palitha Kohona then unilaterally granted Kohona's request as Sri Lanka's Ambassador for an UNCA / “UN” screening of his government's war crimes denial film, “Lies Agreed To.” And that Pioli after demanding censorship of Inner City Press' coverage has used UNCA and now DPI to try to throw Inner City Press out of the UN, just as Pioli first threatened.


Ban with Pioli, who told Inner City Press, "You are an asshole." Credit UN Photo/Evan Schneider

  Another UNCA board member -- Inner City Press quit its elected position on that board in 2012, saying openly that Pioli was corrupt, now in taking money from indicted Ng Lap Seng's South South News and granting him a photo op with Ban Ki-moon -- said such language should not be used at the stakeout.

  But it was Pioli who approached Inner City Press, which hasn't willingly spoke with Pioli in more than a year.

  So it is for this person that Cristina Gallach first ordered Inner City Press out of the UN on two hours notice on February 19 and on whom she has since leaned in trying to defend her February 19 decision, which was reached without once speaking with Inner City Press.


Ban shakes with Cristina Gallach, who threw ICP out of UN on Feb 19, 2016 on 2 hours notice. Credit UN Photo

  Her rationale was that Inner City Press secretly filmed a closed meeting, but that doesn't stand up: the meeting was nowhere listed as closed, and Inner City Press openly live-streamed and even live Tweeted it: hardly secret.

  So the fallback argument was that since Inner City Press covered the UNCA event in the UN Press Briefing Room from one of the glassed-in interpreters' booths, in order to avoid just such a response as Pioli's “asshole” on March 24, it had violated some as-yet unproduced rule about not being in an interpreters booth.

  But on March 23 Inner City Press observed and filmed two non-interpreters in the “other” interpreters booth in the UN Press Briefing Room while UN Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq read out statements and did NOTHING about the use of the interpreters booth.

  On March 24, Inner City Press asked Haq about it, from the UN Transcript:

Inner City Press: Yesterday, as you held your briefing, there were two individuals in the booth right there, the interpreter's booth, the other interpreter's booth.  And I wanted to know, since it's been explained to me that there's some clear rule, it's been said that the Under-Secretary-General of Department of Public Information says that there's an extremely clear rule that only interpreters can be in these booths, and if anyone other than interpreters are in the booth, they face summary ouster from the United Nations.  What was the use of this… please explain, because he's been asked for the rule and didn't provide the rule.

Deputy Spokesman:  Yes, there was, in fact, a violation of the room, which we… which we have taken up…

Inner City Press:  A violation of what rule?  Can you provide the rule?  Because she's been asked for the rule.

Deputy Spokesman:  This is by our fellow DPI staff who were unaware of this, but they have been told they cannot use that room, that they cannot and must not.

Inner City Press:  Who were they?  And did you know yesterday when you did nothing during your presence there?

Deputy Spokesman:  I did not know, because, as when you were hiding there, it's difficult for me to tell that there are people there.

Inner City Press:  There's no hiding.  They're totally visible.  So, you're saying you didn't know and you did nothing, yet it's an extremely strong rule.

Deputy Spokesman:  No, I didn't say I did nothing.  In fact, we were apprised of this, and they cannot use that room.  Thanks.

 On his way out of the UN Press Briefing Room, Haq said to Inner City Press, “Liar.” This is the atmosphere created, when DPI and the Spokesperson's office have allowed a character like Pioli, angry at coverage of his financial dealings with Sri Lanka's ambassador, to essentially run the asylum.

   It seems clear now that there must be a complete reversal of  Gallach's February 19 order, based on false facts (closed meeting, “secret” filming), a dubious rule and at the behest of an UNCA boss who barely writes articles, seeks to control UN office space and comes to the UN Security Council stakeout to call a critic an asshole. We'll have more on this.