UNCA Said Anti-ICP Document Was Internal, But Reuters Charbonneau Gave to UN's Dujarric 3 Minutes Later: Rules Illegitimate

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 24 -- Each time the UN has threatened Inner City Press' accreditation, amid complaints by or rulemaking with its UN Censorship Alliance, the UN Department of Public Information has claimed that it and UNCA are entirely separate.

  That's supposedly what render legitimate the rules under which the UN on June 24 threatened to suspend or withdraw Inner City Press' accreditation: the rules were negotiated at arms' length with UNCA.

  But today Inner City Press has published an ostensibly internal UNCA document that UNCA first vice president Louis Charbonneau e-mailed on June 14 at 2:46 pm to UN DPI official Stephane Dujarric at his private email account steph [at] dujarric.com, saying “you didn't get this from me.”

  The document, which said on its face that it was only for UNCA members, was date and time stamped 2:43 pm on June 14. That is to say, Charbonneau sent it to Dujarric three minutes after it was produced only for UNCA.

  Now Inner City Press is putting online audio from the June 14, 2012 UNCA Executive Committee meeting at which, still in the board seat it was elected to before it quit to co-found the Free UN Coalition for Access, it asked if UNCA would enforce the letter's claim it was only for UNCA members.

  Charbonneau answers, “Yes it means that.” Audio here. Three minutes after getting it, Charbonneau would email the letter outside UNCA, to UN DPI's Dujarric. Or does this mean that Dujarric is an UNCA member? 

  Either way, the rules negotiated between Dujarric's DPI and Charbonneau's UNCA are totally illegitimate, as is the standing threat to throw Inner City Press out under these suspect rules.

  The first audio clip continues with a representative of Al Jazeera reading the letter that was (intended) to be leaked, and UNCA's former president calling the letter “private and internal.” His first vice president Charbonneau would send it to Dujarric three minutes after receipt.

  A second audio clip records the vote that was taken to approve the “private and internal” letter that Charbonneau would immediately send to Dujarric. Voting by proxy -- not even hearing the argument -- were Voice of America's Margaret Besheer (proxy voted by Barbara Plett of BBC), and still current UNCA officer including Sylviane Zahil and Masood Haider.

  So either these current UNCA board members were defrauded by their then and now first vice president Charbonneau -- they believed what they said, that it wouldn't be given outside of UNCA, but Charbonneau immediately did it -- or they knew and lied. In any event, the UNCA agreed rules with Dujarric's DPI are illegitimate. 

  And DPI's argument that only UNCA can have signs, and the new Free UN Coalition for Access, founded after and because of this corruption, can be outlawed is disgusting. We will have more on this.

As Arms Trade Treaty Failed, New Low by UN Cowardice Association UNCA

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 29 -- While diplomats milled around UN Conference Room 1 waiting to learn how theirlack of consensus on the Arms Trade Treaty would be phrased, what were the leaders of the UN Cowardice Association up to?

  Using their anonymous social media accounts to try to claim a victory for their role in the UN's raid of Inner City Press' office on March 18, at which UNCA president Pamela Falk of CBS took photographs. 

  Then anonymous UNCA leader “Concerned UN Reporter” passed photographs including of Inner City Press' bookshelf to BuzzFeed. This is UNCA: the UN's Censorship Alliance.

  Their new anonymous social media accounts are associated with most members of the UNCA Executive Committee: Louis Charbonneau of Reuters, Tim Witcher of Agence France Press, Melissa Kent of CBC, Syliane Zehil of L'Oriente Le Jour, even Barbara Plett of the BBC and others pictured below.

  There's also former Executive Committee member Margaret Besheer of Voice of America, and former former Evelyn Leopold. But absentee president Falk, after screaming on February 22 that she didn't know which of her board members were behind the accounts, has done nothing to find out. Is she resigning?

Ban's UNCA Lunch of the Lost, Feb 7, 2013, credit Evan Schneider, UNPhoto. From left: OSSG's Del Buey; Denis Fitzgerald of Saudi Press Agency; OSSG's Nesirky; Melissa Kent of CBC; Sylviane Zehil of L'Orient le Jour; Tim Witcher of AFP; Ali Barada of An-Nahar; Ban Ki-moon, Kahraman Halicelik of Turkish Radio & TV; Pamela S. Falk of CBS; Lou Charbonneau of Reuters; Bouchra Benyoussef of Maghreb Arab Press; Yasuomi Sawa of Kyodo News; Masood Haider of Dawn; Unknown; Zhenqiu Gu of Xinhua; Stephane Dujarric of UN DPI

  Falk has only issued a legal threat to Inner City Press, from her CBSNews.com e-mail account, not to question why she took photos of the March 18 raid by the UN Department of Public Information.

  DPI is aware of the fake social media accounts and claimed to take them seriously. DPI's Stephane Dujarric is followed by a recently created one. But so what? Watch this site.

As UN Raids Inner City Press Office, Roles of AFP, Reuters, BBC, Al Jazeera

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 18 -- The build up to the UN's pre-textual search of Inner City Press' office on Monday (photo here), allegedly on safety grounds, were a series of complaints, all about articles published and verbal statements such as Agence France Presse being a “lapdog” for Herve Ladsous, the fourth Frenchman in a row to head UN Peacekeeping.

AFP's Tim Witcher urged a UN Correspondents Association proceeding against Inner City Press. And UNCA's “new” president Pamela Falk was there snapping photos of the search on Monday, then fleeing. Some CBS.

But also passing the search and subsequent destruction of files was Michelle Nichols of Reuters, whose bureau chief Louis Charbonneau tried directly and indirectly to get Inner City Press thrown out after stating he has a policy of not giving Inner City Press credit for its exclusives.

There was Marcelle Hopkins of Al Jazeera, who voted against Inner City Press time after time in 2012, to get thrown out, despite Al Jazeera's reputation as somehow free press.

Barbara Plett of BBC, too, voted to expel the press, asking Inner City Press why it had published a photograph of the French Ambassador, and why it reported that UNCA's president had rented one of his apartment to Sri Lanka's ambassador, when he was a UN official, before UNCA without asking the opinion of the whole board screened Sri Lanka's war crimes denial film in the UN.

Assisting or serving the request to expel Inner City Press, formally made June 20, 2012 by Voice of America, was UN Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit chief Stephane Dujarric, who on March 15 before the raid again refused to disclose any UN due process rules, after filing his own false complaint.

Still, it is the people at the top who are responsible. More on that to come. Watch this site.

After Censorship, UNCA Turn Out Down 14%, Reuters VP Down 30%, Delay Opposed by FUNCA

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 11 -- The decay of the UN Correspondents Association has been confirmed in the low turn out of in the organization's largely fixed elections, held January 8-10.

   Despite UNCA's claim to have 200-some members, even last year only 102 people cast ballots. 

   But this time, after a year in which the UNCA Executive Committee spent most of its meetings trying to expel thendis-accredit Inner City Press, turn-out fell 14%, to a mere 88 votes cast.

   This decline took place despite the UNCA Executive Committee violating the UNCA Constitution by pushing the election past the December 15 deadline and into January, allegedly to get more candidates and more turn-out. Video here.

    In a tell-tale sign of UNCA's decay, there was no competition for the top six positions. 

   Nevertheless, running unopposed, First Vice President Louis Charbonneau of Reuters got votes from only 55 of the 88 people casting ballots. His vote count fell 30% from the previous year, more than double UNCA's overall 14% decline in turnout.

   Getting less than two-thirds of the votes in a race with no opponent at all is not only not a mandate: it is message that it is over. Here are the results in January 2013 for the unopposed six, and the vote count they [or their predecessor] got previously in December, 2011:

1/13   12/11

65      [85]   President: Pamela Falk, CBS News TV & Radio

55        79   First Vice President: Louis Charbonneau, Reuters;

60        71   2nd VP: Masood Haider, Dawn;

56        62    3rd VP: Sylviane Zehil, L'Orient le Jour;

55       [71]  Treasurer: Bouchra Benyoussef, Maghreb Arab Press;

67         81   Secretary: Barbara Plett, BBC.

   This is decay. Here are the vote counts for the nine "at large" positions on the UNCA Executive Committee:

39 - Nizar Abboub, Al-Akhbar Lebanon
47 - Nabil Abi Saab, Alhurra TV
45 - Talal Al-Haj, Al Arabiya News Channel
42 - Ali Barada, An-Nahar/France 24
39 - Courtney Brooks, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
47 - Denis Fitzgerald, Saudi Press Agency
37- Mercedes Gallego, Vocento
44 - Zhenqiu GU, Xinhua News Agency
41 - Kahraman Halicelik, Turkish Radio & TV (TRT)
55 - Melissa Kent, CBC/Radio-Canada
33 - Evelyn Leopold, Huffington Post Contributor
52 - Yasuomi Sawa, Kyodo News
57 - Tim Witcher, Agence-France-Presse

  This last, from AFP, began in September 2011 to ask for UNCA "action" against Inner City Press for its reporting on Herve Ladsous being named the fourth Frenchman in a row to the top post in UN Peacekeeping.

  In June of 2012 Witcher told the outgoing / gone Treasurer, Margaret Besheer of Voice of America, that AFP would join VOA in writing to the UN to get Inner City Press dis-accredited. Charbonneau said "his people" at Reuters would do the same.

  As twice noted, the new President has not said a word on the topics of censorship, or the need for conflict of interest rules for the UNCA Executive Committee. 

   Now on January 11, the UN has announced that not only will media space at the UN be reduced by 40%, but the move back to the renovated building is being delayed until April. 

  All UN phone lines that media have used, in the case of Inner City Press to call back the UN Peacekeeping missions and whistleblowers in the Congo, Cote d'Ivoire and Haiti, are being eliminated.

   And what has UNCA said about it? NOTHING. This is decay. The Free UN Coalition for Access, FUNCA, has already written to the UN to protest both moves:

-Please provide an explanation of the further delay to April of the move back to the renovated building.

-FUNCA objects to the elimination of the UN phone lines, which as noted prove useful in covering UN Peacekeeping missions in the DRCongo, Cote d'Ivoire and Haiti.  Now it is unilaterally announced that the lines and long-used telephone numbers are gone. FUNCA asks for an explanation, and objects.

-Finally, for now (this supplements FUNCA's previous "feedback" letter), this is a request that the "final" floor plans be sent be e-mail, as the earlier ones were. If it was thought that e-mail of the scanned plans was the best way to make correspondents aware of the draft plans, why not the final plans?

Watch this site.

UN Votes Without Competition, UNCA Top 6 UNopposed After Tried Expel Press

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 7 -- What do you call a political system in which there is no competition for the positions of president, three vice presidents, secretary, and treasurer --  since only one candidate, endorsed by the outgoing UNCA president in five of the six cases, is running for each slot?

   Hint: it is not a democracy -- quite the opposite.

  So it is with the UN Correspondents Association, which purports to defend the rights of journalists to cover the UN system. In the past year, the UNCA Executive Committee has allowed the UN to reduce media space by over 40%.

  In a perversion of its stated mission, the UNCA Executive Committee sought to expel, and then get dis-accredited from the UN, the investigative Press. And yet confirmed Monday is a final slate for uncontested election to the top six posts:

President: Pamela Falk, CBS News TV & Radio; 1st Vice President: Louis Charbonneau, Reuters; 2nd VP: Masood Haider, Dawn; 3rd VP: Sylviane Zehil, L'Orient le Jour; Treasurer: Bouchra Benyoussef, Maghreb Arab Press; Secretary: Barbara Plett, BBC.

  Four of these six are in line to maintain the same post they had in 2012. First Vice President Lou Charbonneau of Reuters used his position to try to get Inner City Pressthrown out of the UN, according to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

  Five of the six above, and between five and seven of those running for the nine "at large" seats, were asked to explain or comment on the documents obtained under FOIA, including one stating that "UNCA" was meeting with the UN "very quietly" to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN. 

  No explanation or comment was provided; the time for that has elapsed. Now, the response to questioning of UNCA has been to scrawl on the fliers, "Looney Club." 

   The lack of a second candidate for any of the top six position is all the more troubling given that the Executive Committee openly violated the UNCA Constitution and did not hold the election as required by December 15, nor relinquish power by January 1.  

   The stated reason was to attract "new blood." But as noted five of the uncontested top six were on the Executive Committee last year, the Second and Third Vice Presidents for many years. 

As noted in an earlier article about this "election," the views on all this of the new president-designate, nominated by thefour-year president now outgoing, from censorship to dis-accreditation bids to (now) the defacing of FUNCA's fliers, are not yet known. It's increasingly like another succession recently discussed but barely acted on in the UN Security Council.

  From UNCA members current and past, it has been noted that in this current unopposed slate the top two UNCA posts would both be filled by Americans. It's been noted that nowhere in the Executive Committee is there any sub-Saharan African or African-American journalist.

   Is this the UN? The new Free UN Coalition for Access for its part will stay as far away as possible from this corrupt coronation which openly violates the UNCA constitution.

   FUNCA has told the UN Department of Public Information that the so-called "UNCA Club" should be designated more neutrally as the "UN Press Club," same with the laughably named "UNCA Pantry;" the separate "UNCA Office" should be given to the journalists long waiting for work space in the UN. Watch this site.