By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, September 12 -- At the UN in New York on September 8, a UN-accredited person was stopped with a prop gun.
One wire service wrote a story emphasizing the Iranian link, stating that the arrestee was "working for Iranian state-funded broadcaster Press TV," apparently without speaking or even seeking to speak with those involved. (See wire service's response, below.) Subsequently a website called the arrestee "an Iranian journalist."
Inner City Press' same day inquiry found that the person arrested was by no means Iranian. Sources told Inner City Press it was Sy White, a cameraman working a subcontractor to Press TV and others who was also working on a Western themed Internet video. For this side project he had a prop gun, which he forgot to remove from his backpack.
UN Security, the sources told Inner City Press, called the New York Police Department which questioned White repeatedly over a 24 hour period. White's UN entry pass was confiscated, and they said it won't be returned.
Further inquiry over the weekend has confirmed that Sy White was detained, and that he is an Air National Guard reservist. The subcontractor is APTVS which "does provide content to Press TV but also to other clients." He has been told that the initial misdemeanor charge will be reduced to a violation, with some community service possible (Inner City Press from other sources hears this is twenty hours.)
And the Western inspired workshop project is called "Kingdom Come." We may have more on this. And so it goes at the UN.
Update: the wire service mentioned above has responded that it sought to contact Press TV -- but apparently not the individual who was arrested and, some feel, personally damaged by the reporting.
