After Ban Ki-moon Is Quoted on Snowden “Misuse,” UN Claims It Was In Private Meeting: Double Speak?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, July 5 -- Of the US surveillance exposed by whistleblower Edward Snowden, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said “surveillance regimes adopted by some states without adequate safeguards are... counterproductive."

  But UN Secretary General has been quoted, in a meeting with members of parliament in Iceland, as saying that "the Snowden case is something I consider to be misuse” and that the opening up of digital communications should not be "misused in such a way as Snowden did.”

  In the UN on July 5, Inner City Press asked Ban's Associate Spokesperson Farhan Haq to explain Ban's comments. If the UN system views surveillance without safeguards as negative, how could its exposure be, as Ban said, a “misuse”?

  Haq twice refused to even confirm that is what Ban said, insisting it was said in a “private” meeting. Video here, from Minute 6:49.

   It was a meeting with multiple elected officials of a state which speaks much about transparency. Can Ban gag those he met with? According to the Guardian, the quote is in notes taken by two attendees and confirmed by a third.

  But this is Ban's UN -- he similarly stepped back from things said on Capitol Hill; UN system whistleblowers complain of retaliation and a lack of protections. 

 While Haq went on to read out statements on freedom of speech, in Ban's UN just this early summer, Inner City Press has been threatened with suspension or withdrawal of accreditation for hanging a single sign on its door for the Free UN Coalition for Access, which advocates on just these issues. 

  Accreditation officials have demanded “urgent” explanation of tweets, and have tried to tell Inner City Press how to cover Ban and his head of peacekeeping, Herve Ladsous.

  It is in this context that Inner City Press believes the Iceland parliamentarians. The ball would seem to be in Ban's court to explain what he meant that information should not be "misused in such a way as Snowden did.” Really? Watch this site.

  

Pro-UN Posters Allowed But Dissent To Be Torn Down, Banning Free Speech as Trend: Photos

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 18 -- The UN's lack of respect for free speech is not a static fact: it is becoming worse.

  Earlier this year, just after the formation of the Free UN Coalition for Access was announced on fliers that the UN and members of its UN Censorship Alliance or UNCA repeatedly tore down, the UN e-mailed out a compromise.

  Isabelle Broyer of the UN Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit wrote on January 28, 2013, "As a follow-up to last week information about flyers, members of the press have several ways to communicate with their colleagues, if they would like to share information... paste it onto your own office door."

  But now the same Isabelle Broyer is ordering the removal even of a simple Free UN Coalition Access sign from Inner City Press' office door -- while saying that two UNCA signs can remain up.

  Click here to view the Free UN Coalition for Access sign on Inner City Press' office door, photo by FUNCA member Luiz Rampelotto:

Click here to view the UNCA signs, in front of a large space custom-built and given free to the United Nations Correspondents Association for private events they don't even inform non-UNCA members of. 

  Meanwhile, an UNCA executive committee member given a private office next to Inner City Press' shared office has pro-UN propaganda festooned on his door. Photo here. 

  That is not coming down. The UN targets specific messages, and seeks to ban one dissenting group while propping up another.

  This is true not only of signs. Broyer's supervisor Stephane Dujarric, formerly the spokesperson for the UN Development Program's Helen Clark and before that Kofi Annan, has not only tried to tell Inner City Press how to cover Ban Ki-moon.

   This year, he asked that Inner City Press call him "urgently" about a single tweet which mentioned World War Two, the UN's founding event.

  (It was the victors or not losers in World War Two which got Permanent seats and veto power on the UN Security Council, which France converted under Kofi Annan into ownership of the top job in UN Peacekeeping, now held byHerve Ladsous, mentioned in the tweet, the fourth Frenchman in a row to run DPKO.)

  Meanwhile when an UNCA Executive Committee member tweets for example that Syria's Assad is like Hitler, no call from Dujarric. Likewise that he should end like Gaddafi. 

  Dujarric is only endeavoring to micro-manage some correspondents. He likes UNCA and its (Gulf and Western) leadership; he tries to ban the new Free UN Coalition for Access for them, and for others in the UN. We will have more on this. Watch this site.

France Uses Veto from World War Two to Control UN Peacekeeping, But Tweeted Mention of #WW2 Triggers UN Threat to Inner City Press

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 19 -- The UN was founded from the ashes of World War Two. Five victors were given permanent seats on its Security Council, each with veto power including over selection of the UN Secretary General.

  How then can the UN Secretariat threaten journalists who link decisions, including on which countries are given which top UN jobs, with World War Two? 

  Is this not censorship, or attempted censorship?

  Twenty four hours ago the UN's media accreditation boss Stephane Dujarric told Inner City Press to contact him “urgently.”

  It turned out to be about a single tweet Inner City Press had sent on Thursday afternoon, noting that as the Police Adviser to Herve Ladsous, the fourth Frenchman in a row to head UN Peacekeeping, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had chosen to replace a Swedish woman with a German man, Stefan Feller.

  Along with a Twitter hashtag it launched earlier this year after Ladsous repeatedly refused to answer Press questions about 126 rapes in the Congo, #LADSOUS2013, Inner City Press added: #WW2.

  Dujarric had already pressured Inner City Press about its coverage of Ban Ki-moon, during Inner City Press' re-accreditation in mid-2012, and more recently about the #LADSOUS2013 hashtag.

But given that the rapes in Minova that Ladsous refused to answer Inner City Press about ended up being profiled on BBC News and in the Guardian, it might be unseemly to try to discipline or threaten Inner City Press about#LADSOUS2013.

  So why not about #WW2?

When Inner City Press returned Dujarric's call, he began by saying, “I'm trying to understand why on Earth you make any reference to World War Two?”

  He then said the reference -- three characters and a hashtag -- was “idiotic at best and insulting to Feller before he's German and millions of people victimized in the war.” He demanded an explanation, twice saying, “I'm giving a chance.”

  Or what?

  While Inner City Press as a matter of principle -- and perhaps to save breath -- saw no reason to recount it again to Stephane Dujarric, France only has a permanent seat and veto on the Security Council because it is deemed to have been one of the five victors of World War Two.

  In 1996 France used its veto, while Kofi Annan was seeking to replace Boutros Boutros Ghali as Secretary General, to extract a commitment with regard to the top position in UN Peacekeeping.

  It put Bernard Miyet in the position, then was allowed to replace Miyet with another Frenchman, Jean-Marie Guehenno, in October 2000.

  Then, under Ban Ki-moon who was also subject to veto power(s) to become Secretary General, France has kept UN Peacekeeping twice more, with Alain Le Roy in 2008 and then in 2011 the worst of the four, who was rejected for the position by Kofi Annan in 2000: Herve Ladsous.

  So Inner City Press shouldn't put UN Peacekeeping, Ladsous and now his new Police Adviser in the same tweet with “WW2”? By whose orders? For what purpose?

  Or is it that putting as Ladsous' Police Adviser a man from Germany, as opposed to any other country, makes it actionable to mention World War Two?

  Inner City Press, surprised by Dujarric's demands and threat -- “I'm giving you a chance” -- quickly wrote an article, including Dujarric's written statement, here. 

  It noted that Dujarric's DPI led a raid on Inner City Press' office on March 18, rifled through papers and took photographs; the photographs were leaked on March 21 just after Ban's spokesman was contacted by BuzzFeed about the raid.

  Dujarric refuses to answer simple question: with whom did DPI share the photos that it took during the raid?

  We could also note that Dujarric on April 15 was involved in cutting off a Rwanda genocide survivor's story so that Ban could leave to attend another event, in the UN Tent. 

 Inner City Press wrote about it -- perhaps Dujarric didn't like that. But didn't that pass bounds of decency? Wasn't it insulting?

  The problem here is the UN allow its top media accreditation official to grill smaller media about articles and even tweets, while controlling their continues access to the UN. This is ham-handed censorship. 

  And now the Free UN Coalition for Access will be opposing it, and continuing to press for rules that will better guarantee freedom of speech and of the press at the UN. Watch this site.