UN GATE, September 2 -- Who gets to decide which media can enter the United Nations to cover this month's United Nations General Assembly high level week?
The answer in today's UN, not unlike in any dictatorship whether China or Cameroon, is one man and his small circle of yes-men and a yes-women, with no due process, no right to appeal, no judicial oversight.
In this case the man is Antonio Guterres, and the new yes-woman is Melissa Fleming. She previously served as his spokesperson during his tenure at the UN refugee agency UNHCR. Guterres parlayed that into the top UN job by showing great deference to China on its refoulement to North Korea for torture.
And what does Guterres do as Secretary General, beyond seeking a second term include by censoring the Press? He makes announcements that are not followed up on. On 8 March 2019 he announced: "08 March 2019 Mr. Workneh Gebeyehu Negewo - Director-General, United Nations Office at Nairobi (UNON) United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres today announced the appointment of Workneh Gebeyehu Negewo of Ethiopia as Director-General of the United Nations Office at Nairobi (UNON)."
But now in September, six months later,Workneh Gebeyehu Negewo is not listed on the UNON website, instead there is still an "acting" Director General. Inner City Press' sources there have a number of theories. But Guterres has said nothing, counting on the increasing irrelevance of the UN and the compliance of the scribes he allows it to pretend it never happened.
Guterres took money from Lisbon-based Gulbenkian Foundation during the year after he left UNHCR. Then once despite his feminist rhetoric Guterres shouldered out women candidates to take over the UN with China's support, Guterres omitted these Gulbenkian payments from the UN public financial disclosure he filed covering 2016.
When Inner City Press which while reporting daily from inside the UN also covered the UN bribery trial of CEFC China Energy's Patrick Ho in the federal courthouse in lower Manhattan asked Guterres about that case, Guterres refused to answer.
Worse, Guterres pretended through his spokesman Stephane Dujarric to not have even heard Inner City Press' question when called on at the UN Security Council stakeout about Cameroon and his closeness with 37 year president Paul Biya.
On 3 July 2018 Inner City Press was interviewing Biya's long time Ambassador Tommo Monthe outside a meeting of the UN Budget Committee that Monthe chaired. Suddenly Guterres' security detail, led by UN DSS Lieutenant Ronald E. Dobbins, grabbed Inner City Press' computer and twisted its arm, video here, right in front of Guterres' official Christian Saunders, now conducting cover up for him at UNRWA.
After Inner City Press went to file an assault complaint with the NY Police Department on 4 July 2018 but was told the UN is entirely immune, the next day Inner City Press was barred from even entering the UN to continue to cover the UN Security Council, that day a meeting about Yemen as Guterres took money from Saudi Crown Prince MBS.
After a review that did not afford Inner City Press a single hearing or opportunity to be heard or to see evidence, the UN on 17 August 2018 formally revoked Inner City Press' 10-year UN media accreditation.
Guterres' motive became clear as Inner City Press, awaiting reinstatement, more closely covered the SDNY federal court where it is now fully accredited.
Convicted Patrick Ho's CEFC China Energy had been seeking to buy the Partex Oil Company from Gulbenkian Foundation which paid Guterres undisclosed moneys. It was and is, in short, outright personal corruption by Guterres, on which he refuses to answer questions.
On 24 August 2019, alongside continuing the cover the SDNY court, Inner City Press submitted a simple application to the UN like hundreds of other media to enter and cover the UNGA High Level week beginning September 23.
In response, Inner City Press received a Kafka-esque response by Guterres' UN Security Gilles Michaud that the assault on it was for being in a "locked area" - that is, the wide open lounge outside the UN Budget Committee meeting - and that all UN Security is doing is enforcing a decision by the UN Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit, now under Melissa Fleming.
Fleming refused to answer any of four letters sent to her. At 4:30 pm on Friday, August 30 her MALU issued a one-line denial of access: "Greetings Matthew Lee from Inner City Press, Your media accreditation request, with reference no: M5413398, has been declined for the following reason: Media accreditation was withdrawn on 17 August 2018."
So Guterres' lawless UN can withdraw a critical media's accreditation for daring to ask why he omitted from his financial disclosure payments from a company selling its oil company to a Chinese government bribery vehicle - then use the withdrawal to automatically deny access to the UN General Assembly, the so-called global parliament of "We the Peoples."
If press freedom means anything, and if the UN is anything more than a dictatorship of a single corrupt censor, this cannot stand.
Inner City Press will be reporting on the UN and its UNGA either way - but demands to be allowed to enter and cover the often shameful deals of undemocratic nations, like the hundreds of their state media that Guterres lets in to praise him.
The peoples demand the fall of this Guterres regime.
