By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Appeal
BBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - ESPN
UN GATE, Jan 18 – 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 in mid-January, a related complaint has been filed against UN Legal Officers Lucienne Pierre and Ms. Isavella Maria Vasilogeorgi: "This is a formal report of ‘unsatisfactory conduct’ as defined in ST/AI/2017/1 para 3.1, addressed to you under ST/AI/2017/1 para 2.1(a)(v) as the head of department or office of the subjects, who are two Legal Officers: 1. Ms. Lucienne Pierre and 2. Ms. Isavella Maria Vasilogeorgi, both of whom appeared as Counsel for the Respondent in the UNDT case of Padula -v- Secretary-General (UNDT/NY/2019/047) and were online, in that role, at a hearing in that case on 3 November 2020. Mr. Omar Shehabi (a Legal Officer in the Office of Staff Legal Assistance ) appeared as Counsel for the Applicant there, and negligently compromised information the Tribunal considers confidential, resulting in screenshots of those documents being taken and subsequently published by Mr. Matthew Lee on InnerCityPress. In UNDT Order No. 179 (NY/2020), Judge Adda held Mr. Lee accountable for failing to abide by an instruction that she did not know had ever been communicated to him. If that Order was motivated by a genuine concern for the integrity of the proceedings (and not just to further punish Mr. Lee for reporting the extent of corruption and mismanagement in the U.N.)... Given that fact, I would draw your attention to references in the attached statement to the arguments put forward by their colleagues, Mr. Romy Batrouni and Ms. Miryoung An in the case of ASSlicaQW (UNDT/NBI/2020/058), where the driver of a U.N. vehicle was sufficiently guilty of misconduct under ST/AI/2017/1 para 3.6 .. I am assured that both Ms. Pierre and Ms. Vasilogeorgi have adequate eyesight and adequate hearing. They could have prevented this confidential information being shown to the general public but clearly failed to do so. I appreciate, of course, that it may be your considered opinion that the unidentified U.N. staff member who shared those images with Mr. Lee did NOT engage in misconduct by so doing, so no one else can be guilt of aiding and abetting them. Given the unseemly rush to judgment against Mr. Lee, that would be an interesting argument and I would be interested to hear our views on the matter. As things stand, Mr. Lee ALONE has been penalized for the collective failures of the various professional staff involved in that case, which is fundamentally unjust, to say nothing of being suspicious. As such, I do not believe there is any good reason why he should not be made aware of this complaint against Ms. Pierre and Ms. Vasilogeorgi," 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.
