Incoming UN Spokesperson Dujarric Embraces French Dip's Ukraine Script, Mocking Argentina and Nigeria: Censors' Season to Come?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 28 -- This month UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was outed in leaked audio showing that former US now UN official Jeffrey Feltman "got" him to sent Robert Serry to Ukraine.  

  Serry's alleged lack of impartiality was raised February 28 at the UN Security Council stakeout after the Council's meeting on Ukraine.

   Given that, one might expect Ban's incoming spokesperson, French national Stephane Dujarric, to at least attempt to appear impartial. But right on February 28,Dujarric embraced and praised the Ukraine analysis of former French mission to the UN spokesperson Brieuc Pont, saying it deserved an award.

  Pont wrote, "UNSC resolution tabled by Lithuania, P3 and allies is vetoed by Russia, China (Argentina and Nigeria abstain for some reason)."  Latin America and Africa - so hard to understand. Not without humor, but.. for a "UN" spokesperson?

   Brieuc Pont was a spokesperson for French Ambassador Gerard Araud when Inner City Press' publication of leaked French government documents about using UN Peacekeeping, headed by Herve Ladsous, to oust Laurent Gbagbo from Cote d'Ivoire was deemed by the French mission as a "hostile act." 

  Until his counterparts Samantha Power, Vitaly Churkin and Mark Lyall Grant, Araud did not speak at the UN Security Council stakeout on February 28 about Ukraine. 

  Araud is embroiled in a scandal in which Javier Bardem quotes Araud as saying that Morocco is France's "mistress," in connection with Western Sahara. What will Dujarric's position on Western Sahara and MINURSO having a human rights monitoring mandate be?

  Dujarric was joined in lauding Brieuc Pont's analysis by the Reuters bureau chief who previously gave him anti-Press documents with the notation "you didn't get this from me." Another of his complaints with Dujarric, is been banned from Google's search by a bogus Digital Millennium Copyright Act filing. So: partisan, censorship. This is the UN's direction?

  The context of reviewing the new UN spokesperson's tweets is that Dujarric himself, as the UN's head Accreditation official, grilled Inner City Press about a single tweet mentioning France's Herve Ladsous, German and World War II, see below.

   Two years ago Dujarric was re-introduced to UN journalist as the chief of the News & Media Division, in a reception in what the UN called "UNCA Square." And then the censorship attempts began.

  A journalist for Iranian TV, found to have a rubber gun which was a prop in an independent film he was working on,had his UN accreditation revoked, permanently. Dujarric was in charge of Media Accreditation, and Inner City Press asked him for a justification of this "one strike and you're out policy." No answer was ever provided by Dujarric.

  Also in his Media Accreditation role, Dujarric chastised Inner City Press for daring to go stand outside and try to cover a meeting of Ban's Senior Advisory Group on Peacekeeping Operations, which included controversial Sri Lankan military figure Shavendra Silva. After the Sri Lankan government directed a complaint letter to the aforementioned UNCA, Inner City Press was told it could not cover the meetings.

Inner City Press, then on the board of UNCA, was not notified when the organization's then president agreed to screen a Sri Lankan government film denying war crimes. After it published an article noting that the UNCA president had in the past rented one of his apartments to Palitha Kohona, Sri Lanka's Permanent Representative to the UN, demands were made that Inner City Press remove the article from the Internet.

UNCA took to sending copies of correspondence to Dujarric, about articles Inner City Press had written about officials and diplomats of Dujarric's native France. Finally, UNCA first vice president Louis Charbonneau of Reuters sent a complaint against Inner City Press to Dujarric, calling it "for the record."

More recently, Charbonneau has gotten one of his complaints to Dujarric banned from Google's Search, using afiling under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act -- straight up censorship. What does Dujarric say?

In fact, Dujarric solicited complaints against Inner City Press from other big-media UNCA board members, through a private, including through non-UN email address. Freedom of Information Act responses show that UNCA board members met with "the UN" to request that Inner City Press be thrown out. Once Inner City Press published some of these, Dujarric on June 29, 2012 asked to meet Inner City Press.

  Dujarric told Inner City Press not to refer to Ban Ki-moon as "Wan Ki-moon" and not to refer to Herve Ladsous, the fourth Frenchman in a row atop UN Peacekeeping, as The Drone despite Ladsous proposing the UN's first use of drones and refusing to answer Press questions about it. 

  This and a specious criticism for having signed Nobel Peace Prize Winner Tawakul Karman of Yemen into the UN, where she dared speak on the UN microphone after a Security Council meeting on Yemen, were linked by Dujarric to re-accreditation he controlled.

  Criticism of stories, coverage and even tweets is fine -- but when done by an official in charge of accreditation, and even tied to accreditation, we call it what it is: censorship.

Disgusted, Inner City Press and another long time correspondent from Brazil founded the Free UN Coalition for Access as an alternative to the insider UNCA, which did not for example offer any defense to the cameraman thrown out for the rubber gun. (Reuters' Charbonneau, in fact, wrote a story playing up the Iranian angle.)

  But Dujarric became the interlocutor for FUNCA. He said only UNCA was needed. After convening a meeting between FUNCA and UNCA, at which Inner City Press openly said "this is on the record" and UNCA president Pamela Falk of CBS said, "He's going to write about this," Dujarric sent Inner City Press a letter which claimed the meeting was off the record and said FUNCA was not a DPI interlocutor for reform.

  There have been no reforms since, quite the opposite. Dujarric, who earlier refused a New York Civil Liberties Union request that the UN provide due process to journalists, continued the Kafka-esque atmosphere in March 2013 when Reuters and Agence France-Presse filed stealth complaints leading with how Inner City Press asked a question to Herve Ladsous. 

  When Dujarric's Accreditation Unit led a raid on Inner City Press' office, photos from which quickly appeared on BuzzFeed, Dujarric denied any role in giving out the photos. But the published photos are identical to the ones his unit took that day.

  Since the letter with the false "off the record" claim, the raid and photos and attempt to censor tweets, there has been very little contact (though there was an attempt to essentially ban FUNCA, another limitation on freedom of association, speech and press). FUNCA has continued, working with UN-focused journalists not only in New York but as far afield as Somaliland and Colombia.

  Now Stephane "The Censor" Dujarric is set to become the spokesperson. Can he use this position to pursue the censorship he's sought for the past two years? FUNCA opposes it, and says these questions must be answered. Watch this site.

   

On Syria as Reuters UN Parties with France & Trolls, FUNCA Responds

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 5 -- Here's how it works at the UN: with the US, France and Saudi Arabia pitching missiles strikes on Syria, Ambassador Samantha Power on Thursday took questions only from CBS, Reuters and Saudi supported Al Arabiya.

  Inner City Press wrote about this pattern, and hours later a counterfeit social media account pretending to be Inner City Press was set up. Five hours after that, an account associated with the UN Correspondents Association started again trolling Inner City Press, directing its messages at, who else, Ambassador Power, CBS and Reuters. It is too obvious.

  And so after for months asking the UN's Department of Public Information, which partners with UNCA, to act on this anonymous trolling and counterfeiting, after facing nothing but threats of suspension or withdrawal of accreditation for setting up an alternative press freedom group, the Free UN Coalition for Access, it's time to expose this UN Censorship Alliance.

  Let's start with Reuters. Today its UN reporter Michelle Nichols is in Paris, partying with French diplomat and former French Mission spokesman Brieuc Pont. Nichols' boss Lou Charbonneau says he wishes he was there.

  Charbonneau has spied for the UN against Inner City Press, giving UN accreditation official Stephane Dujarric an anti-Press internal UNCA document three minutes after promising not to do so. Story here, audio here, document here.

  Inner City Press, and the Free UN Coalition for Access which it co-founded, have tried to take the high road, fighting for better work conditions at the UN Security Council stakeout and access to the General Assembly. 

  UNCA Executive Committee members (list here) have responded with anonymous social media trolling, attempts to block questions, intimidation of younger journalists who signed a FUNCA petition. It is a Mafia, but the reason we write about it is it has an effect: it is a political Mafia. We will have more, much more, on this. Watch the 'Net and this site.

   

In UN, Ban Ki-moon's Censorship Partners UNCA Mock Woman Alleging Sexual Harassment

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 8 – The group UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon gave lunch and quotes to on February 7, the Executive Committee of the UN Correspondents Association, is not only engaged in censorship and trying to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN.

As became more evident on February 8, they are also prepared to mock a woman complaining of sexual harassment, and to make anonymous postings to this effect. This is Ban Ki-moon's UN Censorship Alliance: UNCA.

  On the morning of February 8 an off the record briefing was held at a UN member state's mission. Because it was deemed off the record, Inner City Press which like the UNCA Executive Committee members and some others attended, is not stating which country's mission it was.

  A UN accredited journalist, also on the list and let into the mission, was seated when she was asked into the entrance to speak with a mission representative. She was asked to leave; she asked Inner City Press and another member of the Free UN Coalition to Access to try to mediate.

   This proved impossible. But during the discussion, the UNCA Executive Committee members gawked through the open door, and mocked the woman who was being asked to leave.

   Finally the woman came into the briefing room and asserted, with quaking voice, that she was being asked to leave due to a past case of quid pro quo sexual harassment. “He tried to conquer me,” she said.

   Several UNCA Executive Committee members laughed openly. The Wall Street Journal's part time UN correspondent Joe Lauria joked, “Did anyone get that on tape? How can I cover it if I don't have it on tape?”

   But none of the UNCA Executive Committee members present, including UNCA President Pamela Falk of CBS, covered the woman's complaint. 

  Rather, through a counterfeit social media account they established, they joked that the woman, identifying her as a FUNCA member, "was expelled from [name of country's] briefing" and said that Inner City Press "broke solidarity and stayed."

   The woman in question has now authorized and asked Inner City Press to write about her case. The briefer, in fairness, is one of the most astute UN observers.

   Back inside the UN, Inner City Press for FUNCA asked Ban Ki-moon's spokesman a question about Ban's favoring of UNCA despite its record – a question that got cut off and censored from UNTV, click here for that.

  Meanwhile upstairs on UN press(second)  floor material was torn down from the door to Inner City Press' cubible office, and a new flyer was posted: “We will not be conquered!”

Inner City Press cubicle door at UN Feb 8, 2013: Ban Ki-moon not shown

   This is a reference to the woman's sexual harassment claim. This is taking place inside the UN, on the second floor over the Dag Hammarskjold Library, by the group that Ban Ki-moon partners with on media matters.

The tearing down of FUNCA flyers and the counterfeiting has been raised to UN officials, including at least one in attendance at Ban's February 7 session with the UNCA Executive Committee, and "new" UNCA President Pam Falk, have been made aware, but both have continued. 

Ban Ki-moon'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; Unkonwn; Zhenqiu Gu of Xinhua; Stephane Dujarric of UN DPI

  Who are followers of UNCA's counterfeit social media account now mocking a woman alleging sexual harassment?

   These include UNCA first vice president Louis Charbonneau of Reuters, as well as his predecessor Evelyn Leopold and his co-worker Michelle Nichols, whose news sense is tweeting on the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. Did that anger them, or a reference to Charbonneau's stumpy blazer? Reuters is responsible for them, even their thinly veiled "anonymous" mocking of those alleging sexual harassment.

    Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reflect the adoption of a policy of not responding to any Inner City Press question or complaint on the part ofReuters editors Stephen J. Adler, Walden Siew, and Paul Ingrassia, and the more anonymous editors of Agence France Presse.

  The followers include two reporters of another wire service cited favorably by Ban's spokesman on February 8.

   They include the former UK spokesman Daniel Shepherd and the current spokesman for the French Mission to the UN, Brieuc Pont, as well two French reporters at the UN: Karim Lebhour of RFI and Adele Smith of Le Figaro. Joe Lauria of the WSJ, with his less than 300 followers, after laughing at the woman alleging sexual harassment, has also followed.

   The followers also include Voice of America, whose Margaret Besheer pushed to get Inner City Press expelled from the UN in 2012, saying she had the support of Charbonneau of Reuters and Tim Witcher of Agence France Presse. There are more, and there is more to say. Watch this site.

In Mali France Evaded "Algerian Element" in SCR 2085, Hostage Taking Followed

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 19 -- When the UN Security Council's Resolution 2085 on Mali was negotiated last month, safeguards were proposed and agreed too, steps that had to be taken BEFORE military action began.

  As Inner City Press reported at the time, Operative Paragraph 11 was called "the Algerian element" by one of its African sources on the Council -- an acknowledgment that a military offensive in Mali without following such steps could destabilize neighboring Algeria.

  But when France began bombing Konna in Mali on January 11, none of the safeguards had been followed. Instead, what followed was a large scale and now deadly hostage taking in Algeria.

  We have waited to write and ask this until, as French defense minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has now announced, there are no more French hostages in the In Amenas natural gas compound in Algeria.

  But simultaneously at the ECOWAS summit, French foreign minister Laurent Fabius has again claimed that France's military intervention is "in the framework of international legality." It wasn't and isn't.

  The "Algerian element" in UNSC Resolution 2085, agreed to be France, wasn't followed, and death there is what happened. Who is to blame?

   Consider Operative Paragraph 11 of Resolution 2085, particularly its final clause:

"11. Emphasizes that the military planning will need to be further refined before the commencement of the offensive operation and requests that the Secretary-General, in close coordination with Mali, ECOWAS, the African Union, the neighbouring countries of Mali, other countries in the region and all other interested bilateral partners and international organizations, continue to support the planning and the preparations for the deployment of AFISMA, regularly inform the Council of the progress of the process, and requests that the Secretary-General also confirm in advance the Council's satisfaction with the planned military offensive operation."

  Starting on January 12, Inner City Press asked the UN: did France get Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to "confirm in advance the Council's satisfaction with the planned military offensive operation" -- the details of which it seems Ban wasn't informed of?

  Were those steps and safeguards only applicable to AFRICAN intervenors?

  At the Security Council on January 14, French Permanent Representative Araud erroneously told Inner City Press that there was no French letter to the UN, only a Malian letter.

  But there WAS a French letter, and it did not mention UN Charter Article 51, which later became France's after the fact fig leaf for the bombing.

  On January 18, French mission spokesman Brieuc Pont did not permit Inner City Press to ask Araud a single question, unlike on January 14 and unlike the other speakers on January 18, from Valerie Amos through Navi Pillay to Security Council president Masood Khan, who told Inner City Press that France had not updated the Council on Mali since January 14.

  Claiming that the request of the Malian authorities is also dubious, since as Araud himself admitted to Inner City Press, coup leader Amadou Sanogo has an official role in the Malian military.

  Again: the safeguards in UNSC Resolution 2085, agreed to be France, weren't followed, and death is what has followed. Who is to blame? Watch this site.

On Syria, "ICC Five" Promote Doomed UNSC Referral Plan, France No Answers or Even Questions on Mali

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 18 -- After the Syria briefing of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, five Security Council Permanent Representatives came to tell the press of their countries' support for referring the matter to the International Criminal Court.

  The countries were France and the UK, and new members Australia, Luxembourg and South Korea.

  They said that "one country" in the closed door meeting was against referral to the ICC. When they finished, another Security Council member told Inner City Press this was far from true, that there is much more extensive opposition in the Council.

   Of Pillay herself, on Syria, Inner City Press asked whyher Office outsourced its study of casualties to Benetech, a firm funded by the US State Department, and wouldn't disclose which two other companies her spokesman says were considered, or even what the criteria for selection were. Click here for that.

   Pillay said Benetech worked on Kosovo; she did not answer on her Office's lack of transparency on this. Video here, from Minute 5:25. (Pillay answered another Inner City Press question, which we'll separately report.)

   Of Security Council president Masood Khan, Inner City Press asked if the hostages in Algeria had been raised -- Inner City Press had heard the UK had raised it, but wanted this confirmed -- and if France has given any update to the Security Council on its military intervention in Mali.

   Khan told Inner City Press that France has given no such update -- this even as more legal and political questions are arising about France's intervention at the invitation of Malian authorities including coup leader Amadou Sanogo. 

  Khan confirmed that the Algeria issue arose, and may give rise to a press statement.

    But when French Ambassador Gerard Araud, UK Ambassador Lyall Grant and the three other representatives who did not speak (welcome to the Security Council!) came out, no question about Mali was allowed. 

   Araud's spokesman Brieuc Pont directed the microphone (at least Pont didn't seize the mic, like another UN Frenchman). After a slew of questions along the line of how Assad could be referred to the ICC despite opposition in the Security Council, it was over.

   So the French Mission to the UN not only does not update the Security Council as its bombings in Mali killed civilians and have cross-border impacts -- they also don't select questions on the topic. Watch this site.

On Mali, UNSC "Exchange of Views" Is Too Late, Ban Ki-moon Had to Do It in Advance

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 14 -- On Mali in December, the UN Security Council's members spent multiple sessions negotiating Resolution 2085, which specified steps to be taken before military action began.

  Among these was a requirement, in Operative Paragraph 11, that Ban Ki-moon as "Secretary-General also confirm in advance the Council's satisfaction with the planned military offensive operation."

  But France began bombing Konna on January 11, then Gao and elsewhere since, without any such "confirmation in advance" by Ban Ki-moon.

On January 12, Inner City Press asked Ban's top three spokespeople to "please state, both as of the beginning of France's military operation and as of your response, what the Secretary General did to 'confirm in advance the Council's satisfaction with the planned military offensive operation,' specifying both what the Secretary General knew about the plans and operation, and what he knew of the Council's position on those plans and operation(s)."

  Thirty six hours later, the UN Secretariat had provided no answer at all. Instead, French Mission to the UN spokesman Brieuc Pont e-mailed to the Press a tweet about a Security Council meeting on January 14, then was quoted by Agence France-Presse, 41% funded by the French government, that the purpose is to "proceed with an exchange of views between members of the council and with the UN secretariat."

  But this "exchange of views," so that the Secretary General can "confirm... the Council's satisfaction with the planned military offensive operation" was supposed to happen "IN ADVANCE."

French president Francois Hollande and his foreign minister Laurent Fabius have both said that France's bombing "resides in the framework of international law."

But what happened to waiting for the Secretary General to confer and confirm in advance the Security Council's satisfaction? Doing it after the fact doesn't cure it. Watch this site.

At UN, Churkin Critiques Expulsion of Syria Diplomats, Ladsous Blames Shabiha, Doesn't Have "All the Tools"

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 29 -- After the UN Security Council heard from Syria envoy Kofi Annan's deputy Jean-Marie Guehenno and his second successor atop UN Peacekeeping Herve Ladsous on Wednesday, Inner City Press asked Russian Permanent Representative Vitaly Churkin about Ladsous' comments that there is a "strong rumor" that the killings in Houla were started by pro-government Shabiha militia.

  Tuesday during Ladsous' press conference he was already pronouncing on his "strong suspicions" that the Shabiha did it. But he flatly refused to answer any questions from the Press, saying "Well, Mister, I will start answering your questions when you stop insulting me and making malicious and insulting insinuations." Video here, at Minute 28:10.
 
  Wednesday Churkin answered Inner City Press that the investigation of Houla is not finished, and that as an investigator Ladsous does not have "all the tools."  It may be that truer words have not recently been spoken at the UN.

  Inner City Press also asked Churkin about the trend of countries expelling Syrian diplomats. He replied that while this is a bilateral matter, it had come up in the Council's consultations. He said that such moves could be "misinterpreted" as presaging a military intervention.

  Churkin took questions without a spokesman mediating. By contrast when French Deputy Permanent Representative Martin Briens spoke, his Mission's spokesman Brieuc Pont took full control of who could ask questions. After the series, as Inner City Press asked "what about expelling diplomats," Briens shrugged and walked away from the microphone.

  German Ambassador Peter Wittig, also mediated by spokesman, did much the same thing, walking away as the Press started asking the "expelling diplomats" question. The previous day Wittig bragged on the record at the stakeout about his foreign minister expelling Syria's representative from Berlin. It would be good to take the question: watch this site.

Footnotes: When a representative of Agence France Presse asked Churkin if Russian weapons were being used to kill civilians in Syria, Churkin responded that the sales were in the past and had complied with law. Not asked was France's more recent air-dropping of weapons into the Nafusa Mountain in Libya: how many of those weapons are in today's Mali / Azawad?


  In an interesting aside, Ja'afari slammed Germany, saying it controls the maritime portion of the UNIFIL mission and did not stop a ship of weapons from Libya meant for non-governmental forces in Syria. Inner City Press' more recent reporting on Germany and military operations has been its new initiative, through the EU's Operation ATALANTA, to strike up to two kilometers inside Somalia. Choices, choices.