By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, May 22 -- "Is that a camera they put over your office door?" The question was put to Inner City Press at the UN at the end of the work day on Wednesday.
Back on the third floor of the UN Secretariat Building, lo and behold there was a black security camera over the door of Inner City Press and the Free UN Coalition for Access.See tweeted photo here.
A quick survey of the rest of the third floor found no other security camera in the press area.
Not in front of the door of Pam Falk of CBS, president of the UN Correspondents Association which is a party to Media Access Guidelines which would ban media workspace in front of the Security Council, as Inner City Press reported and FUNCA protested on May 21.
Not in front of the studio of Voice of America, which on June 20, 2012 wrote to UN official Stephane Dujarric asking the Inner City Press' accreditation to cover the UN be "reviewed."
Not in front of the large office of Reuters, whose Louis Charbonneau has thrice stealthy complained to the UN, once threatening to leave the UN where he is a convenient pass-through unless Inner City Press was thrown out.
Back in December 2009, when the press corps was moved temporarily to space above the Dag Hammarskjold Library, Inner City Press exposed security camera there, calling it the "whistleblower free zone." The camera were removed
Now in 2013 there is a single security camera on the third floor press area: over the door of Inner City Press and the new Free UN Coalition for Access. Both have complained: watch this site.
