Amid Coronavirus in MCC Jail No Soap or Light Says Letter To Inner City Press

By Matthew Russell Lee, PatreonBBC - Decrypt - LightRead - Honduras - Source

SDNY COURTHOUSE, March 28 -- As Coronavirus COVID-19 has spread including in the prison system, Inner City Press has for two weeks reported in person from nearly every bail hearing and appeal in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York courthouse.

  Based on its articles it has received communications from many inmates and their family members. This is one of them: "Mr. Lee, the conditions inside the MCC due to coronavirus, are inhuman.  I have first hand information from an inmate, and would love to share it, so the world is aware of this situation that should be a shame to the authorities.  Since last Saturday March the 21st, and having few confirmed cases of COVID-19 inside the prison, inmates at MCC Manhattan have been practically on lockdown and isolated, only being allowed to call their family a few times for a couple of minutes.     This inmate described To his family the horrible situation for all the inmates.   

They have NO SOAP, no shampoo, no cleaning products, no clean uniforms for 3 weeks, no food or not enough food, they are locked in their cells almost all day and the guards won’t even bother to check on them for hours and hours; the guards close the doors and practically disappear; they can hear people screaming and crying all the time; people are being moved from one place to the other at all time. No sanitary conditions whatsoever, which increases the risk of the coronavirus spread among all the prison.  

 There are no doctors checking on the inmates to verify their health condition; the inmate told his family his eyes and throat were burning, and there was no one to tell, besides, there’s no medication available whatsoever, not even at commissary to buy. No toothpaste or toothbrushes available; no soap or hand sanitizer provided. No cleaning products for their cells.    This inmate reported to his family on Friday March the 20th that his cell had gone out of light; the light was not re established until couple days ago, so he was forced to be isolated in his cell with no light for several days."

 In fairness the U.S. Bureau of Prison tells a different tale, including in letters to SDNY Chief Judge Colleen McMahon, who on March 27 Inner City Press witnessed and conversed with as she experimented with technology to hear from inmates seeking release from the prisons.

  But BOP's letters and the US Attorney's Office arguments are in the PACER database, which unlike most media publication has not dropped its paywall for coverage of Coronavirus.

All of this hypocrisy takes place amid this global crisis as for example the United Nations while laying off UN Delegates Dining Room workers at his headquarters in New York City without any mitigation brags about giving old masks to the City amid a disease its boss Antonio Guterres helped mock and cover up, and bans the Press which asks. We'll have more on this. For now, a song, here.

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Inner City Press Asks UN's Juan Mendez of US Torture Report, Guantanamo, Obama's Prison Trip

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 20 --  When the UN Special Rapporteur on torture Juan E. Méndez held a press conference on October 20, Inner City Press asked him for his view of the only partial release of the US Senate's report on CIA torture, about Guantanamo Bay and whether he thought President Barack Obama's visit to a prison might make his long-pending request to visit US prisons move faster. Video here.

   Mendez said there should be more release(s), and accountability. He said he had had to request the US' conditional offers to visit Guantanamo Bay and US prisons, as he would not be allowed to speak with all prisoners. He praise Obama's visit, but still - Mendez can't get in.

On October 16 when the Chair of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child Benyam Dawit Mezmur held a press conference at the UN, Inner City Press asked him about US President Barack Obama's decision to continue to provide military aid to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Somalia, and South Sudan, despite all four being on the UN's (and US') lists on children and armed conflict. Video here.  

    Benyam Dawit Mezmur said that while the US is the lone holdout on the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the issue can still be gotten-at under the Optional Protocol. Inner City Press asked about the sexual abuse of children in the Central African Republic by French and UN peacekeepers.

   Benyam Dawit Mezmur replied that the Committee is asking France about the alleged sexual abuse of children, and will conduct a review in January. We aim to have more on this.

  At the press conference, there were only two correspondents, as there was an emergency UN Security Council meeting on Palestine at the same time. Inner City Press on behalf of the Free UN Coalition for Access thanked Benyam Dawit Mezmur for the briefing but suggested that in the future postponement of briefings, so that more journalists could attend, be considered. UNCA wasn't present at all; nor has it disclosed the extend of funding and connection by indicted David Ng and Frank Lorenzo and their affiliates.

 Also on the UN, when the UN find a staff member using the UN's email system to trafficking in sexual images of minors, a crime, what does it do? On October 16, Inner City Press asked UN Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq about this paragraph from a UN report it had dug up:

“49. A staff member sent, through the Organization’s e-mail system, pornographic material, including pornographic material involving a minor, and failed to report that another staff member had sent the staff member inappropriate material though the Organization’s e-mail system. Disposition: dismissal.”

  Inner City Press asked, was that all that happened, dismissal? Such that the person could, for example, work in a day care center? Haq said in instances the UN waives immunity.

  Inner City Press asked, how would law enforcement know that the person had used the UN's email system for child porn? Haq said there have been cases in which the UN told local authorities. Inner City Press asked, did it do so in this case? Apparently, the UN will not answer this. For now. Here are other paragraphs:

46. A staff member stored pornographic material, including pornography involving a minor, on the staff member’s United Nations computer, distributed other pornographic material through the Organization’s e-mail system and failed to report that another staff member had sent the staff member inappropriate material through the Organization’s e-mail system. Disposition: dismissal.

47. A staff member sent, through the Organization’s e-mail system, and stored on the staff member’s United Nations computer, pornographic material involving a minor and, on other occasions, distributed, through the Organization’s e -mail system, other pornographic material. Disposition: dismissal.

 48. A staff member sent, through the Organization’s e-mail system, pornographic material involving a minor and, on three other occasions, distributed other pornographic material through the Organization’s e-mail system and stored pornographic material on the staff member’s United Nations computer. Disposition: dismissal.

 The report is entitled "Practice of the Secretary-General in disciplinary matters and cases of criminal behaviour, 1 July 2014 to 30 June 2015."

We'll have more on this. Watch this site.
   

With UN Guarding Jails in Central African Republic, Will Those Who Were Forced to Flee Be Able to Cast Votes?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, December 9, more here -- With UN peacekeepers in the Central African Republic guarding prisons, their chief Herve Ladsous on December 9 told the Security Council that "inmates inside the Bangui central prison seized weapons and shot and threw hand grenades at UN peacekeepers providing static guard duty outside the prison. Three UN troops and one UN police officer were injured in the incident."

  But should UN peacekeepers be functioning as prison guards? How many attacks on civilians in CAR are they not reporting? This is what Ladsous' mission in Darfur is accused of: covering up attacks on civilians and even peacekeepers.

  Ladsous on December 9 scarcely mentioned the impact of his country, France, on the CAR, including a recent incident in which Gazelle helicopters it pulled out of CAR were stopped in Nigeria, under suspicion, on their way to Chad.

  Back on December 2, Inner City Press asked Chad's Permanent Representative to the UN Mahamat Zene Cherif about the rights of refugees from the Central African Republic.

  Mahamat Zene Cherif said there are 100,000 in Chad and more in Cameroon. In his national capacity, he said they should be allowed to vote and participate in CAR, that will be a gauge of the process. He mentioned mobile voting places and a role for the UN.

 On December 9, the Council heard about Cameroon: "The National Electoral Authority has also conducted a mission to Cameroun to assess the voter registration modalities for refugees there. Further missions in the sub-region are also planned to ensure the participation of this important constituency in the elections.”  Here's hoping.

  Back on December 2 before the first questions of the press conference, Inner City Press for FUNCA Free UN Coalition for Acce thanked Mahamat Zene Cherif for the briefing. It has been absurdly argued that there is some rule or precedent that the old UNCA, become the UN's Censorship Alliance, gets a set-aside first question. From today, that is no longer the case. (Earlier on December 2, FUNCA asked the UN about censorship in Libya, here.)

  Mahamat Zene Cherif fielded questions on North Korea (that was UNCA's, as second), Libya, Security Council reform, Syria, Ebola and others. He announced that only that morning five soldiers from Chad were injured in Mali by a mine: news, when a Troop Contributing Country holds the Security Council presidency.

  During the month, the Sahel, the African Union, the delayed Kosovo debate and Afghanistan, among others, will be considered, and covered on this site.

  Amid calls for UN Security Council reform of the powers of the permanent five members, there are also slights among the elected ten members.

With Chad set to take over Presidency of the Security Council on December 1, on November 13 it bristled when this month's President, Australia, circulated a “Program of Work” for December, Chad's month.

Chad's protest, which multiple sources exclusively provided to Inner City Press and which it is publishing here in redacted form, tells the Australian Mission's Political Coordinator Michael Bliss that

“Chad is surprised by your email circulating the December POW. The procedure is that the mission assuming the presidency of that month is the one authorized to do so. We think it is a profound lack of responsibility by the Australian Mission. I hope that we will continue to respect ourselves as non permanent members of the Security Council.”

  That is, Chad not only challenged the violation of procedures, but noted that it was one non-permanent member doing it to another.

  The email of Michael Bliss of the Australian Mission angered those who provided it to Inner City Press. In a reference to Bob Geldof's “Do They Even Know It's Christmas,” Bliss wrote that 

“in respect to that question asked long ago by Bob Geldof, and friends of some other Africans, the Chadian mission do know that it is Christmas time in the week of 22/12 but, I am told, has resisted SCAD's strenuous attempts to arrange the program so that scheduled work concludes by 19/12.”

  SCAD is the UN Department of Political Affairs' Security Council Affairs Division. On the one hand this seems to be a problem between member states, elected members of the Security Council from different continents, of different religions and different cultures.  Inner City Press reached out to the Australian mission and understands that the joking reference was to wanting a quiet Christmas, and is now to their credit acknowledged as ill-considered.

  But on the other hand, Inner City Press is informed, others up to the level of Permanent Representative wonder who gave Chad's Program of Work to Australia - whose Bliss said it came from "off the back of a truck." Which truck? We'll have more on all this.