At UN, French Minister Taubira on Counter-Terrorism Takes No Questions on Dieudonne Prosecution, Lazarevic Hostage Deal in Mali: Rule of Law?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 10 -- Amid attacks on journalists and freedom of expression in countries all over the world, the United Nations under Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is no sanctuary, nor champion, the Free UN Coalition for Access has found.  Sometimes, however, it is better than member states.

 On February 10, France - and, apparently, a French UN official -- controlled a press conference in the UN press briefing room by Christiane Taubira, French Minister of Justice and "Keeper of the Seals." The subject ostensibly was counter-terrorism and the rule of law, but the hand-picked questions left some major issues unaddressed.

  For example, what is the rule of law rationale for prosecuting Dieudonne for a Facebook post, while championing the free speech rights of Charlie Hebdo? This obvious rule of law question was not asked or allowed.

 The first question was set aside by the UN Correspondents Association,become the UN's Censorship Alliance; the other questions were also largely in French, right to the final question.

 A question was taken about Assad, and answered despite Minister Taubira prefacing her long answer with a statement she has nothing to do with foreign policy.

  Ok that - what about the rule of law and the traded release of four"Islamic extremists" (so described by the BBC) for French hostage in Mali Serge Lazarevic, in light of the current (and forthcoming) UN Security Council resolutions prohibiting this?

  The rule of law, of course, would also include prohibitions on bribery. Inner City Press on February 7 exclusively reported on UN jobs for sale in UN Peacekeeping run by Herve Ladsous, the fourth Frenchman in a row in the post. After Inner City Press asked the UN on February 9, the UN deputy spokesperson read an answer on February 10, of Ladsous' purported action, and inaction by the Ouattara government in Cite d'Ivoire. We'll have more on this.

 The point, for now, is that it is always better to take questions - particularly when making claims about freedom of the press and the rule of law.

 Back on January 22 France and Germany similarly controlled a press conference in the UN briefing room. French minister Harlem Desir called for social media companies like Twitter and Facebook to crack down on anti-Semitic posts. 

 Inner City Press, including for the new Free UN Coalition for Access,sought to asked the French minister about the detention of comedian Dieudonne, after the Hollande government's unequivocal support for Charlie Hebdo's cartoons. 

 But the question was not allowed: the French mission called on the old UN Correspondents Association, a representative who did not complain when Hollande took over the UN briefing room in September, and then on France 24. (Germany called on ARD and DPA.)

  Reuters wrote up the French proposal -- ironically by a scribe, Charbonneau, who himself has used false filings for censorship, calling his own leaked anti-Press email a copyrighted work, here, to get it removed and censored from Google's Search.

 On January 23, Inner City Press for FUNCA asked UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric about the detention of Dieudonne, transcript here:

Inner City Press / Free UN Coalition for Access: I've been meaning to ask this for a few days. In France, after the understandable, and I guess, laudable rallying around the cartoons and the right to draw what you want, the comedian Dieudonné was arrested for something he posted on Facebook. And I wanted to know, what does the Secretary-General think of the arrest of a comedian right after the Government championed another form of satire?

Spokesman Dujarric: I understand. I'm not going to get into the details of that particular case, but I think if you… if I could reread what I just said, I think it's important that any laws that are there to criminalize or regulate hate speech be applied equally so that the laws themselves don't generate further discord.

  It's a better answer than France - which did not even allow the questions. As to the UN,  beyond stealth attempts to get the Pressthrown out of the UN, there is often little but platitudes about attacks elsewhere.  FUNCA is Pressing the issue.

  On January 20, Inner City Press on behalf of the Free UN Coalition for Access asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Stephane Dujarric about Bahrain sentencing Nabeel Rajab to six months in jail for a single tweet. Video here.

  Spokesman Dujarric said he expected a statement on that later in the day -- three hours later there was none -- then cited the right of expression, generally. 

 The day before on January 19, Inner City Press on behalf of FUNCA asked Dujarric's deputy Farhan Haq about Turkey having ordered Twitter, Google and Facebook to remove content by BirGun about alleged Erdogan government support to Al Qaeda affiliates in Syria, and threatening to ban Twitter entirely for not taking down the BirGun feed.

   Haq replied vaguely about the right to circulate information but said he would not speculate about the future of Twitter in Turkey.  Video here. 

  It is not speculation: earlier this year Turkey banned both Twitter and YouTube. The Erdogan government has made the same (mis) use of copyright claims to censor leaked material as Reuters at the UN, here.

   

On Haiti Cholera, UN Tells Inner City Press No Legal Briefing, Won't Say If Ban Ki-moon Got Served Papers: Song

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 20, with a song -- The day after UN Secretary General gave a speech about the "Rule of Law" in the UN Security Council, Inner City Press for a second time asked his now-outgoing spokesperson Martin Nesirky to simply confirm or deny that Ban (and his UN Peackeeping deputy Edmond Mulet) have been served with legal papers alleging the UN introduced cholera to Haiti.

    Inner City Press asked this same basic question on February 13 and Nesirky said "I will need to check." But in the six days since no answer has been provided.

   On February 20, Inner City Press formally requested a briefing by the head of the UN Office of Legal Affairs Miguel de Serpa.  Inner City Press keyed this request to  the UN's envoy on cholera in Haiti Pedro Medrano having told Jonathan Katz in Beacon Reader that "It’s the under-secretary [general] for legal affairs, Miguel de Serpa. They are now dealing with the issue before the federal court in Manhattan." [Full disclosure: Beacon Reader is a cooperative-like subscription site to which this reporter, like Katz, contributes, for example today.]

  Nesirky, who leaves March 7 for the UN Information Center in Vienna, said he doubts any briefing on the topic by Miguel de Serpa will take place, or it will be "very short."  

How is stonewalling about a legal case consistent with the "Rule of Law?"

  Inner City Press on February 13 asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson Martin Nesirky:

Inner City Press: on Haiti, I understand the position of not commenting on the cholera litigation, but maybe you can ask the Office for Legal Affairs whether the UN has actually accepted service or process of the papers. There were some earlier problems, and I’ve heard from them that they actually managed to serve two individuals so I’m asking you, just a yes or no answer whether papers were received.

Spokesperson Nesirky: Well, I can’t give either because I will need to check.

  But a week has passed and no answer has been received. The "two individuals" namelessly referred to by Inner City Press in its question were Ban Ki-moon and Edmond Mulet, who spoke on the issue last Fall as shown in the Inner City Press YouTube video here and embedded below.

   In the face of such stonewalling, of such a blue wall of silence, Inner City Press has uploaded the first, raw version of its new song on the topic, here.

Last month the UN's envoy on cholera in Haiti Pedro Medrano was quoted by Agence France Presse that legal wrangling over the epidemic had to be put aside in order to tackle the sweeping advance of the disease.

   Since when Inner City Press has asked, the UN has repeatedly refused to comment on, or access legal papers in, the class action lawsuit against it for bringing cholera to Haiti, this seemed strange.

  At the UN's January 23 noon briefing Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's acting deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq how much if anything -- beyond its credibility -- the lawsuit has cost the UN, and if the UN has accepted service of legal papers.

  Haq said the UN will not comment on the lawsuit.  But, Inner City Press pointed out, the UN's Medrano DID comment on the lawsuit, saying it should be put aside.

  Then Haq said that is not the quote, pulling out the AFP article. It appears the UN choseAFP or even this AFP correspondent Tim Witcher to make its pitch for money while avoiding dealing with its responsibility for the cholera. (The correspondent Witcher was called on first at the January 23 noon briefing, and said to Haq, "On behalf of Pam, I welcome you," referring to Pamela Falk of CBS, the president of the United Nations Correspondents Association now known as the UN's Censorship Alliance.)

  How could that AFP article not have pursued the lawsuit angle? This is how the UN -- and its chosen scribes -- work, or don't work. And it is being challenged and protested by the new Free UN Coalition for Access.

    On the fourth anniversary of the earthquake in Haiti, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon issued a 312-word statement to UN staff there. He began, appropriately, with "grief" - but nowhere in the statement did he mention the word "cholera," much less that the UN is nearly universally viewed as having brought cholera to Haiti, through a deployment of peacekeepers from Nepal coupled with lax UN sanitation practices.

In New York, the UN dodged the claims and questions from Inner City Press about if it has standing claims commissions anywhere -- the answer is no -- and if it even now screens for cholera before deployment -- the answer is still no. Most recently, the UN has refused to accept service of legal papers in the class action lawsuit filed against it. And see below:

   When asked inside the UN about bringing cholera to Haiti, spokespeople for UN Peacekeeper have for months been telling the Press "we have nothing more to say," or more recently, "that is not a yet or no question."

  In November 2013 Inner City Press went two blocks from the UN to a panel discussion with UN Peacekeeping and the US State Department, to see if there might be a more candid answer.

  The guest was supposed to be UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous, who inside the UN refuses to answer Press questions. (Video here, UK coverage here.) But he was replaced, apparently at the last minute, by his deputy Edmond Mulet, once the head of the UN's mission in Haiti, MINUSTAH.

When Mulet and the US State Department's Victoria Holt were asked about cholera in Haiti, only Mulet answered. (Holt answered another question about zero tolerance for sexual abuse, but said nothing about the US-trained 391st Battalion of the Congolese Army being implicated in 135 rapes in Minova.)

Mulet essentially blamed the cholera death on Haiti itself, noting the "same strain" -- that would be, from Nepal, brought along with the peacekeepers from there by the UN -- spread to the Dominican Republic but didn't kill anyone.

  Mulet said it spread to Cuba too, but the government there was more organized. But no follow-up was allowed on the main point: it was the UN peacekeepers' negligent santitation practices that put their fecal material in the river and introduced cholera to Haiti. Have any improvements been made since?

  The venue was the Museum of Tolerance; the host was UNA-USA. The mood was how to make the UN attractive to Americans, or really, how to best present the UN to Americans. That's why Mulet's blame-the-Haitians line doesn't work: nearly anyone who hears what happens thinks the UN should apologize, and try to help the families of those killed. This song will continue to be developed. Watch this site.

   

As Ban Ki-moon Talks Rule of Law, On Haiti Cholera UN Won't Say If Accepted Legal Papers: Song

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 19, with a song -- The "Rule of Law" debate in the UN Security Council on February 19 has been noted by some because it still lists Ukraine as the 34th of 67 speakers. But of "grave concern," as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon characterized Ukraine, was Ban's opening remarks, compared for example to the UN's record of impunity in Haiti.

  Ban said "the rule of law is at the heart of our work at the United Nations." But after being accused in detail of bringing cholera to Haiti, Ban and UN refused to even accept legal papers from the class action lawsuit that's been filed.

  Inner City Press on February 13 asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson Martin Nesirky:

Inner City Press: on Haiti, I understand the position of not commenting on the cholera litigation, but maybe you can ask the Office for Legal Affairs whether the UN has actually accepted service or process of the papers. There were some earlier problems, and I’ve heard from them that they actually managed to serve two individuals so I’m asking you, just a yes or no answer whether papers were received.

Spokesperson Nesirky: Well, I can’t give either because I will need to check.

  But five days have passed and no answer has been received. The "two individuals" namelessly referred to by Inner City Press in its question were Ban Ki-moon and Edmond Mulet, who spoke on the issue last Fall as shown in the Inner City Press YouTube video here and embedded below.

   In the face of such stonewalling, of such a blue wall of silence, Inner City Press today uploads the first, raw version of its new song on the topic, here.

Last month the UN's envoy on cholera in Haiti Pedro Medrano was quoted by Agence France Presse that legal wrangling over the epidemic had to be put aside in order to tackle the sweeping advance of the disease.

   Since when Inner City Press has asked, the UN has repeatedly refused to comment on, or access legal papers in, the class action lawsuit against it for bringing cholera to Haiti, this seemed strange.

  At the UN's January 23 noon briefing Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's acting deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq how much if anything -- beyond its credibility -- the lawsuit has cost the UN, and if the UN has accepted service of legal papers.

  Haq said the UN will not comment on the lawsuit.  But, Inner City Press pointed out, the UN's Medrano DID comment on the lawsuit, saying it should be put aside.

  Then Haq said that is not the quote, pulling out the AFP article. It appears the UN choseAFP or even this AFP correspondent Tim Witcher to make its pitch for money while avoiding dealing with its responsibility for the cholera. (The correspondent Witcher was called on first at the January 23 noon briefing, and said to Haq, "On behalf of Pam, I welcome you," referring to Pamela Falk of CBS, the president of the United Nations Correspondents Association now known as the UN's Censorship Alliance.)

  How could that AFP article not have pursued the lawsuit angle? This is how the UN -- and its chosen scribes -- work, or don't work. And it is being challenged and protested by the new Free UN Coalition for Access.

    On the fourth anniversary of the earthquake in Haiti, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon issued a 312-word statement to UN staff there. He began, appropriately, with "grief" - but nowhere in the statement did he mention the word "cholera," much less that the UN is nearly universally viewed as having brought cholera to Haiti, through a deployment of peacekeepers from Nepal coupled with lax UN sanitation practices.

In New York, the UN dodged the claims and questions from Inner City Press about if it has standing claims commissions anywhere -- the answer is no -- and if it even now screens for cholera before deployment -- the answer is still no. Most recently, the UN has refused to accept service of legal papers in the class action lawsuit filed against it. And see below:

   When asked inside the UN about bringing cholera to Haiti, spokespeople for UN Peacekeeper have for months been telling the Press "we have nothing more to say," or more recently, "that is not a yet or no question."

  In November 2013 Inner City Press went two blocks from the UN to a panel discussion with UN Peacekeeping and the US State Department, to see if there might be a more candid answer.

  The guest was supposed to be UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous, who inside the UN refuses to answer Press questions. (Video here, UK coverage here.) But he was replaced, apparently at the last minute, by his deputy Edmond Mulet, once the head of the UN's mission in Haiti, MINUSTAH.

When Mulet and the US State Department's Victoria Holt were asked about cholera in Haiti, only Mulet answered. (Holt answered another question about zero tolerance for sexual abuse, but said nothing about the US-trained 391st Battalion of the Congolese Army being implicated in 135 rapes in Minova.)

Mulet essentially blamed the cholera death on Haiti itself, noting the "same strain" -- that would be, from Nepal, brought along with the peacekeepers from there by the UN -- spread to the Dominican Republic but didn't kill anyone.

  Mulet said it spread to Cuba too, but the government there was more organized. But no follow-up was allowed on the main point: it was the UN peacekeepers' negligent santitation practices that put their fecal material in the river and introduced cholera to Haiti. Have any improvements been made since?

  The venue was the Museum of Tolerance; the host was UNA-USA. The mood was how to make the UN attractive to Americans, or really, how to best present the UN to Americans. That's why Mulet's blame-the-Haitians line doesn't work: nearly anyone who hears what happens thinks the UN should apologize, and try to help the families of those killed. This song will continue to be developed. Watch this site.

   

Sanctions' Swift Impacts in Iran Reviewed by UN's Ahmed Shaheed, In Eritrea Entirely Ignored by Shelia Keetharuth: No Consistency

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 24 -- This is the tale of two special rapporteurs on human rights of the UN system, on two countries under sanctions: Iran and Eritrea.

  Iran rapporteur Ahmed Shaheed of the Maldives devotes what he Thursday called the longest section of his report to the impact of sanctions. Inner City Press asked him about financial restrictions making it difficult to import medicine, even to transfer funds to charities working after earthquakes.

  Shaheed acknowledged that the banning of Iran from the SWIFT payments system has had an impact. Other sources tell Inner City Press there are law firms preparing reseach on just this issue.

  On the other hand the UN's rapporteur on Eritrea, Shelia Keetharuth of Mauritius, has produced a 21-page report which mentions the word "sanctions" only once, there calling it a "targeted" sanctions regime.

  Inner City Press asked Keetharuth why the impact of sanctions was not included in her report, and what she thought the impacts were. Video here, from Minute 11:07.

  She replied that she has only the mandate since November 1, 2012 -- that is, in seven days, for an entire year. No time?

  The question arises: does the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights not give rapporteurs any training?

  Recently Inner City Press obtained and exclusively published an internal OHCHR plan to take over the "rule of law" functions of the rest of the UN system, and the staffing of the Special Representatives on Children and Armed Conflict, Sexual Violence and Conflict, R2P and the Prevention of Genocide.

Not does OHCHR not tell its rapporteurs what is expected to be covered in a report? Watch this site.

   

In UN, Human Rights Grab for "Rule of Law" Jobs, Citing Failure in Sri Lanka, Jails, Police

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, October 14 -- Last Friday, Inner City Press exclusively published the UN's internal report on its "systemic failure" in Sri Lanka in 2009. 

  Then Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's associate spokesperson Farhan Haq when it would be implemented. Haq said, "this is something we're going to be in dialogue with member states about."

  Now Inner City Press is exclusively publishing the "real" move inside the UN which uses the "Internal Review Panel" report and the slaughter of 40,000 in Sri Lanka to argue for a bureaucratic turf grab. Click here for view.

  The four-page proposal, called "The Third Pillar, October 4, 2013" is ascribed to deputy human rights official Ivan Simonovic. He aims to replace Navi Pillay when her the "half mandate" Ban Ki-moon begrudgingly gave her expires in August 2014. This is described as his campaign platform.

  Simonovic proposes that the UN's human rights machinery, which he aims to head, take over the rest of the UN system's "Rule of Law" positions, and also such mandates as Sexual Violence in Conflict, Children and Armed Conflict, Violence against Children, Anti-Genocide and R2P.

  He connects this grab to the Sri Lanka "Internal Review Panel" -- he does not even mention Sri Lanka once, just the panel -- saying that "This year, a Secretary-General’s Internal Review Panel concluded that the UN had systematically failed to protect human rights through the rule of law in a crisis situation."

To further make the case for his power grab, he givesexamples without naming the countries of the UN's failure:

"4. By way of example, to reduce over-crowding in one country where 98% of prisoners are in illegal pre-trial detention, UN actors supported construction of a new prison instead of addressing the human rights violations that had led to the prolonged pre-trial detention which, in turn, led to over-crowding. In another country, the UN has invested considerable capital in supporting State authorities to increase police recruitment, but far fewer efforts in addressing the impunity among the many police officers allegedly responsible for extrajudicial killings and other human rights violations."

  Yep, this sounds like the UN. But would putting more offices under Simonovic be the answer? Are the UN's problems one of bureaucratic structure, or do they run deeper?

  For Simonovic, as for so many in the UN system, it all comes down to posts:

"resources could be drawn from: (1) all of OHCHR (c.500 staff HQ posts); (2) the “criminal law and judicial advisory Service” of OROLSI (c.20 staff HQ posts) and some of the OROLSI police posts involved in institution building; (3) the ‘Justice Section and Criminal Justice programme’ in UNODC; (4) the EOSG rule of law unit (c.6 staff HQ posts)."

  That's just the beginning: now these mandates would be brought in:

"9. Another area to streamline is support and coherence of the mandates of the Special Advisers and Representatives on the Prevention of Genocide, the Responsibility to Protect, Children in Armed Conflict, Sexual Violence in Conflict, and Violence Against Children. AAll the mandates cover overlapping human rights concerns. For instance, targeted killings and sexual violence against children from an ethnic group in an armed conflict fall within the mandates of all six offices. The collected mandates draw valuable attention to particular aspects of violations that may otherwise have been ignored, leading to positive changes to human rights situations. However, at times they duplicate each other’s work, compete for limited political attention and funding from Member States, and fragment UN situation analysis and the pool of human resources."

  Tellingly, one common denominator is the way in which mandates have been undermined by UN Peacekeeping under its fourth French head in a row, Herve Ladsous. On Sexual Violence and Conflict, Ladsous even after 135 rapes in Minova in November 2012 continues to support the implicated Congolese Army units, the 41st and 391st Battalions.

  On Children and Armed Conflict, Ladsous decided to incorporate Chad, still on the UN list for recruiting child soldiers, into the French-triggered mission in Mali, MINUSMA. Now Chadian peacekeepers are accused of gang rape in Gao, and despite Inner City Press question there are no follow up responses. 

Ladsous refuses to answer any Inner City Press questions, as covered last week in the UK New Statesman, here. This is how the UN rots, how ever it is configured.

  The UN's response to its undeniable failure in Sri Lanka must be better than this. And in the interim, on the push-back in the turf war set off by Simonovic's campaign platform proposal, we'll have more. Read it, exclusively, here, and tell us what you think. Watch this site.

   

At UN, Rule of Law Measurement Session Goes Into Overtime Despite Impunity on Cholera in Haiti, Whistleblowers Blindspots, Raid

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 8 -- At the UN Monday they debated how to measure the rule of law. What they couldn't measure was time.

  The session left less than ten minutes for questions before a closed meeting of the North Korea sanctions committee was to start in the same airless room.

  This allowed for only three questions or “interventions,” and even that caused protocol kerfuffles. A man with a statement from the Inter-Parliamentary Union was called on before an ambassador from Togo.

  The UK's Deputy Permanent Representative Philip Parham whispered that the Togolese Ambassador should be given the floor. He was, and asked three detailed question which the moderator said had to be answered in three minutes.Photo here.

  By then, Irene Khan had left, after Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson, as had an African Permanent Representative. No questions were allowed from the media. Inner City Press wonders, how can the UN measure anyone's rule of law when it so tersely dismissed legal claims for bringing cholera for Haiti?

  When it has no whistleblower protections for peacekeepers?

  When it raids, without notice or consent, the office of critical media, takes pictures which are then leaked to BuzzFeed.com as soon as they ask the UN about the raid? This is the rule of law?

  An outside speaker, a professor, told a story about a scientist trying to measure the weight of the soul, bodies before and just after death. There was laughter. Remember: who brought cholera to Haiti? Rule of law indeed. Watch this site.

UN Calls Haiti Cholera Claim “Not Receivable,” UN Lawyer Patricia O'Brien & Ban Ki-moon Leaving Town

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 21 – More than a year after a complaint about introducing cholera into Haiti was filed with the UN (video here), on Thursday afternoon Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky announced that the claim was “not receivable.”

  Inner City Press asked him to explain what the phrase meant, immunity or impunity, and why it had taken the UN so long. February 21 video here, from Minute 10.

  Nesirky first declined to explain, saying it is not the UN's practice to discuss in public the details of claims filed. Then he cited the “privileges and immunities” resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly on February 13, 1946.

  He said that since considering the claims would involve reviewing “political and policy matters,” the claim was not receivable.

   Why take more than a year then, Inner City Press asked. Nesirky explained that the UN had engaged in “serious consideration” for the time necessary of the claims in all their aspects.

   Repeatedly since the claim was filed, Inner City Pressasked for the status or for Ban Ki-moon's top lawyer Patricia O'Brien to answer questions. The new Free UN Coalition for Access also made this request, that O'Brien as an Under Secretary General hold a press conference. It never happened.

  Now Patricia O'Brien is about to leave the UN, to go represent Ireland at the UN in Geneva. To skeptics it appears that the UN waited until now, to get the disturbing decision out of the way before a new UN top lawyer comes in. They note that Ban Ki-moon is about to leave New York on a trip.

  But how can the UN preach “rule of law” while holding itself exempt? How can it even try to avoid explaining how it exonerated itself? Who will hold this UN to account? Watch this site.

Forward-looking footnote: Inner City Press has also asked the head of UN Peacekeeping Herve Ladsous what safeguards if any he's implemented to avoid spreading cholera elsewhere. 

  Ladsous refused to answer, then after FUNCA protested, on February 6 purported to answer Inner City Press on cholera - with no reference to safeguards. This continued, this week, in the UN Special Committee on Peacekeeping. UNlawful....

On Rule of Law, UN Cites Haiti But Not Cholera or IDP Deaths, Due Process Banned

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 30 -- With the "Rule of Law" the topic in the UN Security Council on Wednesday, one might have expected such legal topics as the UN's responsibility for introducing cholera into Haiti or the application of its supposed Human Rights Due Diligence Policy to be on the agenda.

   But, at least in public, there was only one speaker: Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson. Then the Security Council's 15 members went into the smaller consultations room. 

  The representative of a country which attended but had to leave after Eliasson finished asked Inner City Press, "an issue like this has to be behind closed doors?"

  Inner City Press later put this to January's Security Council president Masood Khan, on camera. He affably replied that since it was an "interim report," it was closed consultations. But the report was commissioned a full year ago. 

  Is it that the Security Council doesn't trust the other members of the UN?

  And so we are left with Eliasson's three page public statement. It is full of buzzwords but mentions a few of the countries where there are UN peacekeeping missions: Liberia, South Sudan, Cote d'Ivoire and Haiti. 

 Of course of Haiti it does not mention accountability for cholera.

   Nor on Cote d'Ivoire does it mention UN envoy Bert Koender's cover up of the murders at the Nahibly IDP camp and the UN peacekeepers' role. How can the UN preach rule of law if it doesn't practice it itself?

   A simple but currently open example of this is the UN's refusal to answer what it rules of due process are when a complaint is filed with it against an accredited journalist.

  On June 20, 2012 Voice of America filed a request with the UN's Stephane Dujarric, citing its bureau chief Margaret Besheer, asking that Inner City Press'accreditation be "reviewed." 

  Voice of America said it had the support of UN Correspondents Association "colleagues" at Agence France Presse (Tim Witcher) and Reuters (Louis Charbonneau, who had already filed his own complaint, secretly of course).

  Dujarric thanked VOA's Steve Redisch for the complaint and said he'd call him about it -- but never told Inner City Press.

  After the unconstitutional complain was exposed and questioned from Capitol Hill -- Voice of America is a US government agency under the State Department -- Inner City Press' accreditation was extended. But, according to VOA documents, Dujarric assured VOA that Inner City Press had received a warning.

  What type of warning? Did it, still unconstitutionally, concern the content of coverage?

  For now, despite a direct request from the New York Civil Liberties Union, and now the Free UN Coalition for Access, Dujarric and those above him have not answered the basic question of due process: that is, of the rule of law. Watch this site.