By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Appeal
BBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - ESPN
UN GATE, Jan 12 – How corrupt and unaccountable is today's United Nations?
Well, in November 2020 Inner City Press went to attend and report on a UN Dispute Tribunal proceeding about a case of sexual harassment in the UN, a proceeding which was announced as open to the public, as US court cases are.
But when Inner City Press signed in and gave its name, it was excluded. Later, when it obtained and published evidence presented in the case, a UN Dispute Tribunal judge ordered it to destroy the evidence or be banned from all future proceedings.
This while UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres falsely claims to have zero tolerance for sexual harassment and abuse, while himself banning Inner City Press from UN briefings now for 924 days. Now on this record he wants a second term, another five years.
On December 21 Inner City Press filed a formal appeal with the UN Appeals Tribunal, full filing here on DocumentCloud.
Now on January 12, a related complaint has been filed with the UNDT Registrar: "while I respect Mr. Shehabi's desire to act in the best interests of his client, his motion of 5 November is not only outrageous, it flies in the face of everything the Secretary-General has ever said - to the member states, the media and the public - about the U.N. having 'zero tolerance' for sexual misconduct. The fact that Judge Adda actually granted this ridiculous motion is another matter altogether, but that does not detract form the fact that the purpose of anonymity is to protect the victims of misconduct; it is not to protect the identity or the reputation of the offenders like Mr. Padula. To do so would bring the U.N. 'justice' system even further into disrepute that it has hitherto managed.. Mr. Lee alone has been penalised for reporting information that was disclosed in the course a UNDT hearing that was open to the public, and for publishing images that were only made available to him through the negligence of the Counsel for Mr. Padula, who put the information into the public domain in the first place. As such, I do not believe there is any good reason why he should not be made aware of this complaint against Ms. Shehabi." By, Peter A Gallo, cc: Matthew Russell Lee.
The formal appeal was prefaced by this:
"While I have conferred with UN practitioners on that attached, I would like to add that as a US journalist I find it particularly outrageous that the UNDT purported to order me to destroy evidence of sexual harassment / abuse within the UN, of the type that the UNSG and his spokepeople refuse to answer about or allow Inner City Press into its briefings to ask, even by WebEx which the IMF, for example, answers Inner City Press' over. All of this should be reversed. This is a request that you acknowledge receipt and also provide a case number."
And still, nothing from the corrupt UN of Antonio Guterres. #No2dTerm #DumpGuterres
We will have more, including listing those who have received the filing without response, complicit in the UN's cover up of abuse. Watch this site.
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