By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Maxwell book
UN GATE, March 10 – Hypocrisy and careerism are nothing new in the UN. Now Human Rights Watch has a new executive director Tirana Hassan - and the press conference was limited to members of a group with Chinese state media on its board and Iran's IRIB as a member, which worked to throw the Press out of the UN, the United Nations Correspondents Association.
That Tirana Hassan was colluding with an organization which bans Press - actually two, the UN and its UN or UN Censorship Alliance - was known to her: she follows Inner City Press on Twitter, and her UN rep was part of getting Inner City Press ousted from UNCA (for exposing corruption of the organization's then President) and then ousted from the UN (natch - Antonio Guterres' undisclosed financial link to bribery firm CEFC China Energy).
Now on March 10 HRW trumpets that two of its staff have been banned from Bahrain. Fine, we'll report it. But note that HRW has been fine with and colluded in the UN's ban of Press.
This UNCA and its executive committee member are so arrogant they didn't even respond to an inquiry about their position on UN access from the Quinn Emanuel law firm, representing Inner City Press pro bono, here. Birds of a feather.
Here was the promotion: "Human Rights Watch is pleased to invite members of the United Nations Correspondents Association to an in-person press conference at UN Headquarters on Thursday, March 9, 2023, at 2:00 p.m. EST. In her debut press appearance at UN headquarters, Human Rights Watch’s acting executive director, Tirana Hassan, will discuss and take questions on the main human rights challenges for 2023. Who: Tirana Hassan, acting executive director Louis Charbonneau, UN director When: Thursday, March 9, 2023. Where: UNCA Room (S-310) at UN Headquarters. This press conference is open to all UNCA members."
Open to UNCA members, largely state media and retirees. HRW's UN rep also worked to get Inner City Press banned from the UN, and made false copyright claims to cover up his role. Will Tirana Hassan be any different? An appeal is pending, here - it is a litmus case. This is today's UN - hours after the event, there was no video, and that only story from an aggregation site and only on Nicaragua. They claim they spoke on China - in secret, to a group with CCTV on the board. Corrupt.
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