UN Human Rights Chief Prince Zeid In US To Meet Only Government Officials and Legislators, Issues Like Police Brutality and Predatory Lending Ignored?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 3 -- The official visit to the US of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Prince Zeid features today a meeting with Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken. According to Zeid's Office, he will

“hold meetings with State Department and other U.S. Government officials, including National Security Adviser Susan Rice, to discuss a wide range of overseas and domestic issues. He will also meet with around eight senior members of the House of Representatives and the Senate.”

   One is left wondering: what kind of human rights visit is it, not meeting with civil society representatives but only the government?

  Zeid's announcement emphasizes that his is "the first official visit by a UN Human Rights Chief to Washington D.C. to meet senior  U.S administration officials and Members of Congress since 2007, when former High Commissioner Louise Arbour made a similar visit."

  The Commissioner in between, of course, was Navi Pillay, to whom US Secretary General Ban Ki-moon only gave half of a second term. But Pillay on her visits met with civil society. How should this lack on Zeid's official visit be viewed? 

  What about, just for example, the issues of police brutality as raised in the UN Committee on Torture andpredatory and discriminatory lending, raised for example in the UN Committee on the Eradication of Racial Discrimination? What of human rights issues like tortureand spying? There are non-governmental experts -- and victims -- a UN High Commissioner for Human Rights should meet with, and elsewhere would, if the past is any guide. We'll have more on this.

  Back on November 21, Inner City Press which has previously praised Zeid for example on Sri Lanka and other issues reported that, protesting layoffs and lack of transparency, staff at the UN Office of the High Commission for Human Rights were petitioning then-new High Commissioner Prince Zeid for due process and accountability. Inner City Press obtained the petition andexclusively put it online here.

In it, the OHCHR staff call for “transparent and comprehensive information on prospective cuts and restructuring, detailing their impact on savings and OHCHR’s overall financial situation... tangible accountability measures by attributing responsibility for the present crisis and taking the requisite action to prevent another financial crisis of this magnitude in the future and a meaningful dialogue and truly consultative decision-making on ongoing financial including putting decisions on hold.”

The staff complain to Zeid that “the lack of transparency, consultation and information on who, where or how, not to mention why, some of us are affected is deplorable and unacceptable.”

The lack of transparency in the current OHCHR extends from Geneva to New York, where the Office anonymously spun its Ukraine report to hand-picked scribes then refused when asked to explain the basis. 

 Inner City Press on behalf of the Free UN Coalition for Access asked at the November 20 UN noon briefing that the New York representative of Prince Zeid hold a press availability about the report, including incongruities in report on labor issues such as the cut-off of pensions, click here for that.

  On accountability, the staff complain that the “senior management level evidently bears much more responsibility. Yet, it is other individuals at lower levels who are paying the price for this mismanagement.”

Also on accountability at the OHCHR, as Inner City Press has twice reported, document leaks from inside the UN have identified improper service of Morocco, on the question of Western Sahara, by a current staffer at the OHCHR, Anders Kompass, and by another who has recently left.

 Prince Zeid still not publicly addressed this scandal, though Inner City Press understands that no only is their an investigation by the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services, but also inquiry from member states such as Sweden. Inquiry on them was not permitted at Zeid's one press availability that week in New York. Zeid's spokesman has indicated there will be no comment at all until OIOS' "investigation is completed." Since the OIOS process is far from transparent -- it has become even less so -- this is the way the UN system tries to make issues go away, but it is even less appropriate at the UN's human rights office.

   Zeid should address this scandal - and his Office's staff. Watch this site.

   

As US Releases 2013 Mortgage Data, Inner City Press Finds Disparities at Citi & Chase, Protests CIT - OneWest

By Matthew R. Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 23 -- This week, after a UN report slammed the US for mortgage discrimination and with the UN General Assembly meeting in New York, the Federal Reserve has released the official 2013 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data.

   Inner City Press has reviewed the data, finding for example that in the New York City Metropolitan Statistical Area in 2013 JPMorgan Chase made 12 conventional home purchase loans to whites to every loan to an African American borrower.

  2013 is the tenth year in which the data distinguishes which loans are higher cost, over a federally-defined rate spread of 1.5 percent over Treasury bill yields.

  Back in April releasing the first study of the then-unofficial 2013 data, Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch found that  Chase was more disparate to Latinos then whites, confined them to higher-cost loans above the rate spread 1.81 times more frequently than whites in 2013, versus a 1.64 disparate for African Americans. Citi had a higher denial rate for Latinos (17.3%) than for African American (17.1%). 

 Inner City Press and Bronx-based Fair Finance Watch also found that Wells Fargo confined African Americans to higher-cost loans above this rate spread 2.01 times more frequently than whites in 2013  Bank of America also had a 2.01 disparity between African Americans and whites; Citi was 1.83 and Chase 1.64.

  Looking at the official data on an aggregate basis, NCRC found that "reliance on government-backed Federal Housing Administration (FHA) lending for home purchase lending was reduced; the share of FHA home purchase lending declined from 31 percent in 2012 to 24 percent in 2013."

  This comes after the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination recommended

Undertaking prompt, independent and thorough investigation into all cases of discriminatory practices by private actors, including in relation to discriminatory mortgage lending practices, steering, and redlining; holding those responsible to account; and providing effective remedies, including appropriate compensation, guarantees of non-repetition and changes in relevant laws and practices.

  Private actors means banks.

   At Capital One, now the fifth largest bank after the regulators apparently ignored CERD approved its acquisitions from ING and HSBC, African Americans got denied for HMDA-reported loans 61.5% of the time, and Latinos 63.4% of the time.

  At M&T, whose application to acquire Hudson City Savings Bank Fair Finance Watch and NCRC have opposed since October 2012, African American were confirmed to high cost loans 1.81 times more frequently than whites in 2013, and were denied 1.97 times more frequently than whites.

  And so Fair Finance Watch and Inner City Press have re-doubled watchdogging. Challenged by the groups in 2014 and still pending, with FOIA issues, are applications by Valley National Bank, CIT - OneWest and others.

Further studies will follow: watch this site.

At End of Togo's Month Atop UNSC, Talk of CERD & Big Media Sleaze, DPI, P5 & Delegates' Lounge

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 30 -- When Togo held its end of Security Council presidency reception Thursday at the UN, Ambassador Kodjo Menan's gratefully short speech did not look back at the month, as the morning's Wrap-Up session did, but rather to a UN election on Monday.

  Ms. Hohoueto, interviewed later by Inner City Press, is running for the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. There are 16 candidates, minus Madagascar, for nine seats, and the election is June 3. This is how the UN works.

  This too is how the UN works: multiple diplomats approached Inner City Press to say they are outraged at the idea of a press table in front of the Security Council being eliminated. One African Permanent Representative demanded, Who is behind this?

  A Western Permanent Representative explained, there are some in the UN press corps who have said they do not want it. (They control the UN Correspondents Association Executive Committee.) "We do not agree, but we need them."

  How can it be, that ostensible journalists would be lobbying for less rather than more access?

  It's that the media is a business. These Gulf and Western correspondents benefit from less access: they get spoon-fed scoops by "their" missions, and do not want independent media being able to access the range of UN and elected Security Council members states by means of a work table at the stakeout.

  But what should the UN Secretariat want -- access for the range of journalists, or a monopoly of Gulf and Western media? This has become the question, raised by the Free UN Coalition for Access.

  The head of the UN Department of Public Information, to whom this has been raised, faces a moment of truth: is he in favor of access? The arguments have been made, and the verdict is awaited. He has asked for time and it has been granted. But time is running short. The issue is not complicated: return to how things were, or reduce access.

  Invited to the Togo reception in the "Delegates Dining Room," Inner City Press went up to the DDR on the fourth floor, now open. But there it was corporation, JP Morgan, Bill and Melinda Gates et al. Toto was in the cafeteria, albeit with smoked salmon by the river, spicy Togolese meats in the back.

Among Permanent Five members of the Council, Russia's Vitaly Churkin, China's Li Baodong and the UK's Mark Lyall Grant were in attendance.

  UN Peacekeeping's Herve Ladsous, we kid you not, walked around unnoticed for a while, before alighting on Kenya's Permanent Representative. Did they talk about the racism of the ICC? Or how that court refuses to prosecute those who kill perceived supporters of Laurent Gbagbo?

  Somalia's Permanent Representative as it happens is a long time UN system employees, with the World Health Organization all over Africa and finally in Eritrea. It is a UN story, as is that of an 80 year old retiree who remembers a UN barbershop, cut rate roast beef and the Delegates' Lounge.

  When will that re-open, after so much spending by member states? And who would dare turn it dry, even on Friday night? Is that Joe Torsella? Or someone joyless? Watch this site.