Jailed Journalist Ahmed Abba of Cameroon Feted By CPJ Near UN Which Didn't Raise Case to Biya

By Matthew Russell Lee, UN Audio

UNITED NATIONS, November 15 – The government of Cameroon, where Paul Biya has been president for 35 years, has sentence journalist Ahmed Abba to 10 years in prison on terrorism-related charges. On November 15 in New York, Abba was given, in absentia, an International Press Freedom Award by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). 

The event was in a hotel ballroom three blocks from the United Nations, where Inner City Press had earlier on November 15 asked the deputy spokesperson for UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres if Guterres had even raised Abba's case when he met with Biya and received from his a gold statue in late October in Yaounde. (The answer appears to be, No.) 

So Inner City Press went to cover the event, and in the absence of the imprisoned Abba interviewed the coordinator of CPJ's Africa program Angela Quintal, mostly on Cameroon but also on Burundi, Zambia, Tanzania, the UN and Lesotho, which Quintal brought up.
   Quintal said that Cameroon had “stalled” visas when CPJ was slated to visit the country in April and so the visit never happened. Citing Inner City Press' questions to the UN, she brought up the Anglophone areas and journalists arrested there. Inner City Press asked her about the cut-off and now hindering of the Internet in the Northwest and Southwest of the country, so that government abuses cannot be reported. She said that is of concern to CPJ, and opined that the Biya government wants to ensure that conflicts cannot be reported, even less so than in neighboring Nigeria.
   She said Biya's Information Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary is “pretty good at stalling,” and said CPJ has tried to get Abba's case raised by the EU, US and African Union. Inner City Press asked her about Burundi, where it seems international focus has waned. She did not disagree, noting that the number of journalists trying to leave Burundi has fallen, because most who wanted to leave already have. She said on where to devote CPJ resources there are hard choice, and then went off the record, which we respect.
  Back on the record, Quintal noted that CPJ has had success in getting a journalist released in Zambia (Chanda Chimba) while acknowledging that more must be done. That much is true. As Inner City Press rushed out of the Grand Hyatt to get back to the UN before the 7 pm curfew imposed on it for the past 21 months for reporting on a meeting, in the UN Press Briefing Room, of the UN Correspondents Association to see if they discussed funds received for their ball from now convicted UN briber Ng Lap Seng, CPJ welcomed to its fundraiser an UNCA president who vowed to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN if it did not remove an article from the Internet. CPJ was informed of all of this, and has done nothing. Yes, there are hard choices. We'll have more on this. And on this, on Cameroon: a week after UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres accepted a golden statue from Cameroon's 35-year president Paul Biya in Biya's palace in Yaounde, there were threats of prosecution against people who refuse to celebrate Biya's 35 years in power. Photo of letter here. So is this was Guterres celebrates, under the Guterres Doctrine? What is the relation to the illegal lumber exports signed off on by Guterres' Deputy, Amina J. Mohammed in the #RosewoodRacket? This involves "smuggling from Cameroon." See EIA video, here. There were threats to Inner City Press' accreditation at the UN, here. On November 15, Inner City Press asked Guterres' deputy spokesman Farhan Haq, UN transcripthere: Inner City Press:  since the Secretary-General's going to give this speech on… on countering terrorism while it's en… you know, holding up values, tonight, Cameroonian journalist Ahmed Abba is going to get an award… the International Press Freedom Award, not in person because he's been sentenced to ten years in jail for reporting on the conflict in Cameroon.  He's been convicted under antiterrorism laws.  So, it made me wonder, when the Secretary-General visited, met with President of Cameroon, Paul Biya, who's largely responsible for this prosecution and imprisonment of a journalist, was this issue raised? And… and does it fall within the ambit of the Secretary-General's views of proper use or improper use of terrorism laws, in this case, to imprison a journalist? Deputy Spokesman:  "The Secretary-General has made it clear that any measures that are counter-terrorist measures should not be used to restrict the enjoyment of human rights in any aspect, including freedom of expression and freedom of the media.  And that would be the case here, as well." But did Guterres raise it? Will he? Meanwhile in the South West Region, there is a curfew and demand to register and give "weapons" to the government. On November 13, Inner City Press asked UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric, UN transcript here: Inner City Press: over the weekend, in Cameroon, in both the northwest and southwest, there was a collection apparently in light of not only armaments, rifles and handguns, but even hoes and cutlasses, it said, basically a total disarmament and… and… impinging on even farming work by people.  And I'm wondering, given that François Fall is… calls for a dialogue, what… is the UN aware of this?  There are written orders online that you can see telling people to turn all of these things in… Spokesman:  "I have nothing on these reports as of now." Nor six hours later.  On November 9, Inner City Press asked UN official Najat Rochdi, who was the head of the UN system in Cameroon until earlier this year and is now its deputy in the Central African Republic where Guterres just visited before Cameroon, if Guterres had spoken to her at all about Cameroon. No, she said, he had wanted to optimize his time. Video here. So apparently Guterres gets his information, and gold statues, from Paul Biya, or from Khassim Diagne, who was part of Rochdi's system. It is  closed loop, and a total failure. On November 8, Inner City Press asked Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric (drawing a response of sorts, that "The Anglophones have been doing some shooting today"), UN transcript here: Inner City Press: on Cameroon, I know that there was a call by François [Lounceny] Fall and, I guess, the Secretary-General for dialogue with the “Anglophone regions”.  It's reported in the press in Yaoundé that the Government has sought international arrest warrants for 15 Anglophone leaders, and I'm wondering if that would be viewed as consistent with this call for dialogue and, if not, if the UN has anything to say about it. Spokesman Dujarric:  I don't have any information on those arrest warrants.  We, obviously, continue to call for calm and reiterate the availability of the UN to support the search for a lasting solution in the Anglophone provinces.  And we call on the… also on the authorities to ensure maximum restraint by security forces.  Evelyn? Evelyn Leopold: Yes.  I think the Anglophones did some shooting today." Video here; Leopold is retired from Reuters, still demands first questions at UN press conferences "on behalf of the United Nations Correspondents Association," wihch will charge money for an event with Antonio Guterres in mid-December - we will have more on this. On November 7 Inner City Press asked Guterres' spokesman Stephane Duajrric, UN transcript here: Inner City Press: I wanted to ask you two questions about Cameroon.  One is, since the Secretary-General's visit, one, there's a… there are reports of a crackdown in a place called Jakiri, where one gendarme was killed, and now basically everyone is being told there will be collective punishment unless a gun is turned over.  And I wanted to know, is Mr. [François Louncény] Fall… who… after the visit, who's keeping track of it?  Also, bigger picture maybe, the… the Cross River State Governor in Nigeria, Ben Ayade, has said that the border has essentially been closed for people fleeing the Cameroon… the anglophone region of Cameroon, and I wanted to know whether that's something that either Mr. Fall or on the… you know, UNHCR is aware of. Spokesman:  UNHCR, you can check with them.  I will… I don't have anything on… more on Cameroon. Inner City Press: if Mr. Fall was there on the trip… he wasn't in the photograph with the…Spokesman:  He was there.  We already said he was there. Inner City Press: All right.  So what was the… was any plan reached for continued work…? Spokesman:  If there's a further visit that he's able to make, we will announce it." Nothing.  On November 6, Inner City Press asked Guterres' deputy spokesman Farhan Haq, UN transcript here: Inner City Press:has to do with Cameroon, where the Secretary-General stopped, met President [Paul] Biya.  Today, they're celebrating the thirty-fifth anniversary of his accession to power.  And a letter's emerged that orders all Government employees to participate in the ceremony marking the thirty-fifth year in power of Paul Biya, saying, basically, names should be provided, and they will be punished for not.  Given… I guess I'm just wondering, is the Sec… was the Secretary-General, when he stopped, when he took this golden statue, what did… was he aware of this?  What does he think of… is it… is it permissible, from the UN's point of view, for a Government to order its civil servants to mark the thirty-fifth year in power of a leader or face punishment, or should this be discouraged?  And does he have any comment on it? Deputy Spokesman:  Obviously, people everywhere have the right to freedom of movement, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly.  Those freedoms need to be respected in all circumstances.  Regarding the gift, Stéphane [Dujarric] made very clear to you that's a standard protocol gift — which happens in many different countries and contexts." The UN delivered a threat to Inner City Press to “review” it accreditation on October 20, using as its pretext an undefined violation with Periscope in UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres' 38th floor conference room, and publishing audio from a UN stakeout, citing Cameroon. On October 31 at the UN Security Council stakeout, Cameroon's Ambassador approached Inner City Press and issued his own threat. Of the UN's 38th floor, he demanded of Inner City Press, "Who asked you to go to 38? I'm going to call, say for Matthew not to go upstairs. You've started... asking nasty questions." On November 2, Inner City Press asked Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric about it, video here, UN transcript here: Inner City Press: a statement made by Cameroon's Permanent Representative to me at the Security Council stakeout, in a public area, saying, on 38, "Who asked you to be up there?  I'm going to make a call to make sure Matthew is not up there anymore.  You ask nasty questions."  So my question to you is, if a Member State, in this case a Member State that is subject to questions, nasty or not, were to call the 38th floor and say, I want a particular media to not be up there, why are [they] up there — what would be the response from the 38th floor?  I ask because I've gotten an accreditation threat for being up there.  That's why it’s strange… Spokesman:  Well, I think you're mixing… you know, if an event is open to the press, to the wider press, then everybody is welcome.  We are not… journalists here have to do their job.  There are obviously restrictions placed, depending on the event, but I guess the answer would be no.  Thank you." This from the UN Spokesman who threw Inner City Press out of the UN Press Briefing and then from its office, keeping it still restricted. This is today's UN. But can Inner City Press publish this threat, meant to hinder or prevent coverage of mass killing and displacement of Anglophones, without the UN's Department of Public Information's censorship machinery moving to review its accreditation, or using it as its rationale for continuing to keep Inner City Press from its long time office, keep it restricted in movement? DPI boss Alison Smale said she saw the need to respond to petitions to restore Inner City Press to its office and normal access - then her Department issued its October 20 threat. Now this. Watch this site - audio here.  Be aware: the audio is from Smale's own DPI. This UN has become disgusting.  The UN official who signed the letter, when Inner City Press went to ask about the undefined violation of live-streaming Periscope video at a photo op by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, had already left, minutes after sending the threat. What to make of the letter's vague statement, "filming and recording on the 38th floor are limited to official photo opportunities, and recording conversations of others in the room is not permitted. It has been brought to our attention that you breached that rule recently"? It's not only vague as to when, but absurd: once a Periscope is authorized to start streaming, it is impossible to not record someone who speaks loudly at the photo op. This comes two days after Inner City Press asked Guterres about the UN inaction on threatened genocide in Cameroon, and the UN claimed Guterres hadn't heard the 15-second long question.  Recently at a photo op, Guterres' adviser on Cameroon Khassim Diagne spoke loudly. Inner City Press later reported, based on sourcing, that Diagne who was previously the representative to Cameroon for UNHCR, the UN refugee agency Guterres ran, speaks in favor of Cameroon's government. Is this letter a response to the reporting? Is it retaliation? Is it intimidation to stop reporting on this threatened genocide? We can't ask the complainant, Maher Nasser: after the threat was delivered, he blocked Inner City Pres on Twitter, here.

  It also comes after Alison Smale the head of the Department of Public Information which would “review” Inner City Press' accreditation has ignored three separatepetitions from Inner City Press in the six weeks she has been in the job, urging her to remove restrictions on Inner City Press' reporting which hinder its coverage of the UN's performance in such crises as Yemen, Kenya,Myanmar, and the Central African Republic where Guterres travels next week, with Smale's DPI saying its coverage of the trip will be a test of its public relations ability. But the UN official who triggered the complaint is Maher Nasser, who filled in for Smale before she arrived. 

UN's Letter Threatening to Review Inner City Press' Accreditation for Audio Report While Staking Out on Cam... by Matthew Russell Lee on Scribd

His complaint is that audio of what he said to Inner City Press as it staked out the elevators in the UN lobby openly recording, as it has for example with Cameroon's Ambassador Tommo Monthe, here, was similarly published. 

A UN “Public Information” official is complaining about an article, and abusing his position to threaten to review Inner City Press' accreditation. The UN has previously been called out for targeting Inner City Press, and for having no rules or due process. But the UN is entirely UNaccountable, impunity on censorship as, bigger picture, on the cholera it brought to Haiti. And, it seems, Antonio Guterres has not reformed or reversed anything. This threat is from an official involved in the last round of retaliation who told Inner City Press on Twitter to be less "negative" about the UN - amid inaction on the mass killing in Cameroon - and who allowed pro-UN hecking of Inner City Press' questions about the cholera the UN brought to Haiti and the Ng Lap Seng /John Ashe UN bribery scandal which resulted in six guilty verdicts. We'll have more on this.

CPJ's New Board Chair Kathleen Carroll Is Only For Friends on Twitter, CPJ Silent as UN Restricts Press

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 26 – After the Committee to Project Journalists came to the UN for a meeting on the 38th floor on February 23, Inner City Press asked CPJ's Joel Simon for a summary of what had been raised. "Not yet," Simon said, as one of his escorts told Inner City Press to back away. Tweeted video here.

 It was a typical UN scene: a group promoting a principle outside of the UN not pursuing it inside the UN, in order to maintain access and perceived influence. So was the UN's lack of due process for the Press, noted for example by Special Rapporteurs Kaye and Forst, here, raised or addressed? Now on May 26 CPJ has announced a new board chair, Kathleen Carroll formerly of AP, who tellingly has a locked / private Twitter account, @redheadkxc. How's that for Press Freedom?

  At the February 24 UN noon briefing after UN holdover spokesman Stephane Dujarric made claims about the UN's commitment to freedom of the press, Inner City Press asked him for a read-out of Guterres' meeting with CPJ et al. Dujarric did not provide one; he refused to answer the question about due process, telling Inner City Press "This is not your living room." Video here, Vine Camera here.

 Moments later, as Inner City Press asked Dujarric about a leaked UN Peacekeeping letter it exclusively published earlier in the day and which contradicts what Dujarric had said on the record on February 23, Dujarric simply ran off the podium and out of the briefing room. And the UNTV clip, as "produced" by UN DPI, cuts the audio mid question, here at end. This is the UN's commitment to responsiveness, due process and freedom of the press.

 At the UN for journalists, there is no law, no due process, no appeal. And when CPJ reported on the killing of journalists, it omitted a journalist killed right under the UN's nose in South Sudan, John Gatluak (Inner City Press reported it here:  CPJ mentioned only Syria and the Middle East in its press release. And in its count of journalists killed in 2016, CPJ does not count for example South Sudan journalist John Gatluak, executed in the Terrain in Juba. 

The United Nations' Cammaert / cover up report on its failures in Terrain also does not mention Gatluak. It's like the UN Censorship Alliance. Click here for video of Inner City Press' live-Periscope camera being grabbed, thrown and smashed by "journalists" on December 16 on Wall Street. Who watches the watchers?

  It is the same as groups speechifying about accountability not holding the UN to task for killing 10,000 Haitians with cholera, nor for the lack of prosecutions for peacekeepers' sexual abuse. The UN talks about the rule of law but does not abide by it.

    CPJ, including Simon and his deputy Robert Mahoney, were informed in detail of the UN's lack of due process for the press - but they have done nothing. One year ago, covering the UN corruption scandals which have resulted in two sets of indictments for bribery involving the UN, Inner City Press was ordered to leave the UN Press Briefing Room by then Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

  Other correspondents were allowed to stay in the briefing room, which Dujarric had "lent" them. But he insisted that Inner City Press leave. Video here.

  Inner City Press asked to see any paperwork that the event was closed; none was provided. Inner City Press stated that if a single UN Security official asked it to leave, it would. Finally one guard came and said Dujarric wanted it to leave. 

  Inner City Press immediately left, uploaded the already live-streamed Periscope video, and continued digging into the corruption that's resulted in the indictment for bribery and money laundering of Ban Ki-moon's brother Ban Ki Sang and nephew Dennis Bahn.

  But three weeks afterward, without a single conversation or opportunity to be heard, Ban's Under Secretary General for Public Information Cristina Gallach ordered Inner City Press to leave the UN, after ten years, on two hours notice. Order here.

   This was enforced, as Inner City Press worked on its laptop at the UN Security Council stakeout, by eight UN Security officers led by Deputy Chief McNulty, who tore Inner City Press accreditation badge off its chest and said, "Now you are a trespasser." Audio here.

  Inner City Press was marched down the escalator and around the UN traffic circle, without even its coat which was up in its longtime office. It was pushed out of the gate and its laptop, in a bag, was thrown on the sidewalk and damaged.

  The next work day when Inner City Press arranged for a fellow journalist to sign it in as a guest so it could cover the Security Council, UN Security official Matthew Sullivan said it was Banned from UN premises worldwide. Audio here.

   After three days covering the UN from the park in front in the sleet, and articles like this one, Inner City Press re-entered with a "non-resident correspondents" pass - to which it is still, more than eleven months later, confined.

  The then-US Mission under Samantha Power and Isobel Coleman, even petitioned by the DC-based Government Accountability Project, did nothing. Indirectly, a offer was made of an upgraded pass if Inner City Press would agree to a gag order, to which it would not and will not agree.

  There has been no UN opportunity for appeal or reinstatement. After having five boxes of Inner City Press' investigative files thrown on the sidewalk in April, Gallach is giving its office to an Egyptian state media Akhbar al Yom which rarely comes in, a correspondent Sanaa Youssef who had yet to ask a single question. 

Her only claim is that she was once, decades ago, a president of the United Nations Correspondents Association, the group to which Duajrric "lent" the UN Press Briefing Room, without notice or written record, on January 29, 2016. 

 Even as the scope of Ban Ki-moon's corruption is being exposed upon his return to South Korea, here, his successor Antonio Guterres has yet to reverse this year of censorship and no due process. On January 6 Dujarric and Gallach led him on a tour of... the UN Correspondents Association, which now wants him again in their clubhouse. (More on this to follow.)

 On January 27 as Inner City Press moved to cover Guterres at the UN's Holocaust event, it was targeted by UN Security and told it could not proceed without a minder, who did not appear for over 15 minutes. 

  The harassment continued through the day, as Inner City Press exposed more corruption, including involving Jeffrey Feltman (Dujarric told ICP its questioning was "despicable"), and the use of military contingents involved in war crimes in Herve Ladsous' UN Peacekeeping, as criticized by new US Ambassador Nikki Haley.

 All of this must change - but hasn't yet, in 145 days of the "new" UN Secretary General CPJ met with in February, Antonio Guterres. This is a scam, and censorship: the UN's Censorship Alliance. We will have more on this.

US Samantha Power To Take CPJ To ECOSOC, As UN Gives Inner City Press' Office to Akhbar Elyom

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 26 -- When US Ambassador Samantha Power came to the UN Security Council stakeout on May 26, she took questions on Syria, Lebanon, Ukraine and the Committee to Protect Journalists - but none on Africa, which makes up 70% of the Security Council's agenda. (Inner City Press tried at the end, “Question on Burundi? Does the US think the Arusha talks are inclusive enough?” but to no avail, Periscope video here.)

    The CPJ question was about the UN's NGO Committee voting “No” on CPJ, after a question and answer period that Inner City Press covered (and Periscoped) earlier in the week. Power indicated that the US will be bringing CPJ to a vote in the full Economic and Social Council, as it has on other NGOs which Inner City Press has covered, not without success.

  But there is an irony here. CPJ has criticized the Egyptian state media Akhbar Elyom - which the UN has selected to take over the shared office space it revoked in retaliation from Inner City Press for seeking to cover an event in the UN Press Briefing Room on January 29, which Inner City Press saw and sees as related to the UN's expanding Ng Lap Seng bribery scandal.

  After the UN ousted Inner City Press on February 19, the Government Accountability Project wrote to the US Mission urging it to counter this retaliation. Letter here.Inner City Press tried to ask about the letter, to Power hereand then at the State Department briefing in Washington (it did ask, here.)

   After the UN threatened to evict Inner City Press' investigative files (and before it did so, on April 16), GAP wrote to Ban Ki-moon urging him to call off this retaliation. Letter here.

   After the UN, having through channels indicted it would the office space empty until Inner City Press served out its four month purgatory, moved to give the office to Egypt's Akhbar Elyom, a media CPJ has criticized, Inner City Press re-raised it to CPJ. Still, nothing. Watch this site.

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 by peacekeepers, disparate treatment in Mali, dalliance with genocide in Sri Lanka and prospectively Burundi, impunity for cholera deaths in Haitiand 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, much less asking a question in the UN noon briefing. 

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.

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 Piolidissembled, 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? Watch this site.

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 CPJ Honors Ethiopian Free Zone 9 Bloggers, Table to Debevoise Law Firm With Business There, As In Rajapaksa's Sri Lanka: Questions

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 25 -- At Manhattan's Waldorf Astoria Hotel a crowd of the elite not only of media but of the (corporate) law, the men in tuxedos, on November 24 rightly  celebrated journalists like the Free Zone 9 Bloggers of Ethiopia.  

  Inner City Press went to cover the event in order tointerview the Ethiopian bloggers, about those incarceration it had repeatedly asked the UN, without meaningful response. The bloggers were not to be found in the Astor or Jade rooms, reception sponsored by Reuters, so Inner City Press went to take in the scene from the balcony above the ballroom floor. Periscope video here

After some interplay with security, the Press was directed to a lower balcony directly above tables with signs for Time Inc, First Look Media and, incongruously, the Debevoise & Plimpton corporate law firm.

  The speakers, from MC David Muir to CPJ's own executives, told those in attendance they were helping just be being present (and, presumably, paying). But there is a question: if for example the law firm of Debevoise & Plimpton promotes investment in the same Ethiopia which locked up the Zone 9 Bloggers, and did deals in Mahinda Rajapaksa's Sri Lanka, which killed journalists, is the one-night purchase of a table on balance of assistance?

  Some might say that with this money they do good. But if the cause is truth, or even speaking truth to power, does the hobnobs of corporate M&A law firms with corporate media, some it new, really serve that cause?

  From the balcony before leaving, there was too little -- seemingly no -- mention of the plight of journalists in Burundi, for example; the treatment of Turkey seemed kids-gloved (although Christiane Amanpour did mention the country in a video she narrated). We'll have more on this.

  Last year, too, Inner City Press and the UN-based Free UN Coalition for Access were left with questions. The selection by the Committee to Protect Journalists seemed one-sided, without even a tip of the cap, or bow-tie, to James Risen or James Rosen, prosecuted the the US, much less journalists killed in Eastern Ukraine by forces based in Kyiv. 

   Or take the cases of Ethiopia's Zone 9 bloggers and Temesgen Desalegn, which were tellingly ignored by CPJ when on a panel at the UN on November 3, 2014. That day the UN held its event for the first International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists. Not a single question from a journalist was taken.  CPJ was on the panel.

 Also speaking from the podium was for example UNESCO's Deputy Director General Getachew Engida of Ethiopia, a country which just sentenced to three years in jail journalist  Desalegn.

This journalist's imprisonment, for “provocation,” is hardly low profile; either is that of the Ethopian Zone 9 Bloggers. But the moderator, UNESCO's George Papagiannis, did not raise the issue, even as he purported to read out congratulatory live-tweets about the event.

  (IFEX to its credit did reply to one of @InnerCityPress' tweets questioning the event and how it was run, here. By another, it was suggested that maybe Engida, even with his many UN system posts, is a dissident from Ethiopia. But it does not seem like it: see recent photo here.)

Nor did any of the other panelists raise it: Joel Simon of CPJ, Greece's Ambassador, Columbia University's Agnes Callamard. The lone media panelist, from Al Arabiya, spoke without irony about naming and shaming countries which jail critics for mere tweets: many in the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula.

Inner City Press as media, and the new Free UN Coalition for Access, had this question ready:

“about an underpinning to deadly attacks on journalist: the idea that they are parties to a conflict, or can be prosecuted for their reporting on national security. Can the panel, particularly the Deputy Director General of UNESCO, comment on Ethiopia jailing journalist Temesgen Desalegn for three years for “provocation”? Or, to be fair, the prosecutions here in the US of James Rosen, James Risen and Barrett Brown, set to be sentenced on November 24? Of the breaking up of meetings of reporters in Sri Lanka, a country in which journalists have been killed or “disappeared,” as in the case of Prageeth. What is the relation of such prosecutions to the actual killing of journalists?”

But, as noted, the hour and a half long panel took not a single question from a journalist. At the day's UN noon briefing, Inner City Press asked Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Stephane Dujarric if Ban while in Ethiopia recently to make it the third largest UN “duty station” had in any way raised the case of journalist Temesgen Desalegn. 

 Apparently not. This is how the UN -- and CPJ, to some extent -- work, or don't.

  When CPJ was shown of censorship within the UN itself, it did nothing.  Then president of the UN Correspondents Association Giampaolo Pioli demanded that a Press story about him renting one of his Manhattan apartments to Palitha Kohona, Sri Lanka's ambassador, then unilaterally agreeing to use UNCA to screen the Sri Lankan government's war crimes denial film in the UN. 

  When Inner City Press refused to take the story down, instead offering to publish a letter to the editor of any length, Pioli made good on this threat to try to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN. Documents obtained from Voice of America under FOIA here, here (AFP) andhere (Reuters - which also tried to censor its complaint to the UN, here, via Electronic Frontier Foundation's Chilling Effects project.

 What did CPJ do or say about this? Unlike the New York Civil Liberties Union, here, CPJ did and said nothing - like the Sri Lankan government, it uses UNCA as one of its ways into the UN. It is inconvenient to look at this. But now, indicative of UNCA's decay, Pioli is set without competition to return to head UNCA. So will CPJ'slongstanding marriage of convenience at the UN continue apace? Watch this site.