UNITED NATIONS GATE, December 20 – While untransparent and largely absentee UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has reformed little at the UN, other than asserting that he has absolute impunity to have a critical journalist roughed up and banned, now for 169 days, each agency goes its own way. Whistleblowers within UNFPA, the Population Fund that supported and defended its own representative Diego Palacios' sexual harassment of contractor Prashanti Tiwari in India, exclusively tell Inner City Press about UNFPA's initiative to leave the common ERP technical system ("ATLAS") that it currently shares with UNDP, UNV, UN Women, UNCDF, UNITAR, UN University and others to build their own ERP system. While UNFPA officially pays lipservice to the UN reform, its leadership has activitly initiatied a project to build its own stand-alone ERP system without properly coordinating with its sister agencies. This is preempting any future UN reform discussions.
UNFPA has mislead its own Executive Board where it asked for "IT improvement" in the amount of $24 million but not mentioning that it would leave the commom UN consortium to build its own ERP system. This decision is not only costly but will also increase IT maintenance cost for UNDP, UN Women and the other agencies as it lowers the economies of scale. UNFPA leadership continues to pay lipservice to the UN reform while activitly leaving a common platform. They did not even bother to formally inform the other agencies... On the morning of December 19, Inner City Press in writing asked Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric questions about UNFPA. As with all other questions this week, from Cameroon to Sri Lanka to Guterres' refusal to audit UN NGOs implicated in UN bribery, Dujarric didn't deign to respond, while serving pro-UN state media. He is a censor. And the UN corruption spreads under Guterres abetted by censorship.
UNFPA has mislead its own Executive Board where it asked for "IT improvement" in the amount of $24 million but not mentioning that it would leave the commom UN consortium to build its own ERP system. This decision is not only costly but will also increase IT maintenance cost for UNDP, UN Women and the other agencies as it lowers the economies of scale. UNFPA leadership continues to pay lipservice to the UN reform while activitly leaving a common platform. They did not even bother to formally inform the other agencies... On the morning of December 19, Inner City Press in writing asked Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric questions about UNFPA. As with all other questions this week, from Cameroon to Sri Lanka to Guterres' refusal to audit UN NGOs implicated in UN bribery, Dujarric didn't deign to respond, while serving pro-UN state media. He is a censor. And the UN corruption spreads under Guterres abetted by censorship.
Two key elements of press freedom are not banning access as the UN has done to Inner City Press for 169 days now and being transparent, another UN failing. And this failure was on display again on October 23, when before a UN noon briefing it was banned from, but with the promise its written questions would be answered, Inner City Press asked in writing to 10 UN officials and spokespeople: "October 23-2: It is reported that the UN is blaming its continued lack of any Freedom of Information Act procedure on supposed management reforms. What is the connection? What is the hold up? And for example, how many times has the SG visited Lisbon since January 1, 2017 and how much, including in Security costs, has it cost the UN / the public?" Eight hours later, no answer at all. No response to any of the five questions Inner City Press submitted, four on Africa, after a noon briefing in which not one of the correspondents allowed in the briefing room asked any questions related to anything in Africa, on which the UN (and the Secretary General's son Pedro Guimarães e Melo De Oliveira Guterres) raise money. For years, before being roughed up by UN Security under UNSG Antonio Guterres and banned by a no due process letter by his Global Communicator Alison Smale, Inner City Press has pushed for a Freedom of Information Act covering the UN and its use of public money. Now it turns out that Smale, who have never spoken to Inner City Press before banning it, has dissembled about her and Guterres' supposed commitment to transparency. The publication EYE writes this week: "In an interview with EYE in February of 2018, Alison Smale, Under Secretary General for the Department of Public Information, said the Secretariat would like to create a rigorous” access policy but first needed to resolve an internal debate about which department should be the “custodian” of UN records. The custodianship of records is usually one of the least difficult issues handled by institutions adopting access policies. Since then, the Secretariat has conducted a major reorganization, but appears no closer to settling the custodianship issue or beginning an effort to prepare an access policy. A UN spokesman on Oct. 19 cited ongoing management reforms as the reason, saying, “Any changes on access to information policies would have to follow afterwards.'" Always an excuse from the UN. And where is UN Special Rapporteur David Kaye, who purported to call for a FOIA but can't even hold Smale accountable for no due process censorship and Guterres for secret banned list? Meanwhile Inner City Press has FOIA requests pending with the US State Department, NYC, the UK and Netherlands. (By contrast, Inner City Press non-UN related FOIA get responded to and reported, for example here in the Intercept.) We'll have more on this. We have revisited not only the shocking censorship regime at the UN of Alison Smale, until a year ago the New York Times' bureau chief in Berlin, but the equally shocking failure of the NYT's three UN correspondents to cover or even respond on Smale's lifetime ban imposed on an investigative journalist.
On August 17, Smale after a 45 day "review" that did not include a single interview with Inner City Press issues a lifetime ban on its entry into the UN. It was noted not only in BuzzFeed and The Hill, but in the largely anti-Trump Press Freedom Tracker, here. But from the New York Times, nothing. Since then, a two-page New York Post story, here. And still no financial disclosure from Smale. Instead, a telling tweets / re-tweets by Smale of the NY Times, and of UK Minister Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, here. And more hypocrisy: Smale virtue-signaling on NYT internship policies, here, while the UN continues unpaid internships. No due process to oust for life critical media: Smale is a Censor. Inner City Press submitted material to the NYT editorial pages and James Bennet - no response. Inner City Press emailed the NYT's three UN correspondents, Rick Gladstone, rickg [at] nytimes.com, Somini Sengupta sengupta [at]nytimes.com, and the newer but no more responsive Michael schwirtz [at] nytimes.com - and days later, nothing, to this: "I'm requesting that you / the NYT report on this: the UN's ex-NYT Alison Smale as USG of DPI on Friday imposing a lifetime ban on me, with no due process, no appeal. The letter is attached. My rebuttal(s) so far are online at http://www.innercitypress.com/unguterres4smalebansicpmoroccoscam081818.html The reasons given are bogus - the warning letters, one the product of a complaint from the Mission of Morocco whose policy on Western Sahara I often question, the other a complaint from a DPI official who didn't like an article I wrote. How can I be banned from the UN for this? Most pressingly, how can Smale and SG Guterres block me from covering next month's General Assembly high level week, which I've covered for 12 years? The deadline to accredit is September 5. If I have to, I will cover it from the street (a practice Smale called derogatory, but see "On Cameroon Inner City Press Video Guterres' Smale Calls Derogatory for Lifetime Ban Remonetized by YouTube.") I do not believe the UN should, or legitimately can, target, rough up, suspend and now ban for life a critical journalist. I am requesting that you cover this, or work so another NYT reporter does. It is UN (and beyond) story. Since the NYT reported Inner City Press' entry into the UN, it would seem it would cover its being roughed up, suspended and now banned for life, on such bogus grounds, particularly at this time and given The Times' advocacy for press freedom and access elsewhere." And days later - nothing. We'll have more on this. Tellingly, while one might expect the UN Department of Public Information to be more public than other of Security General Antonio Guterres' departments, the chief of DPI Alison Smale is not even on the public disclosure list as of August 16, 2018. What could explain it? Since DPI has all day and a bent to propagandize, one can imagine the excuse being that Smale was only awarded the position on 9 August 2017, after, say the USG of Counter Terrorism who is listed: he was named in June 2017. But the excuse breaks down: making public disclosure, here, of a property in Moldova, is Natalia Gherman who was only awarded her UNRCCA position on 15 September 2017, more than a month after Smale. So why isn't Smale in the public financial disclosure list? Isn't this particularly inappropriate for a former Berlin bureau chief of the New York Times, which calls for such disclosures by public official like Smale is, but doesn't act like? We'll have more on this, and on other disclosures: some don't even fill out the Assets section, only Outside Activities, for example. Why have Guterres and Smale, and their non-responsive spokesman Stephane Dujarric, banned Inner City Press from the UN and the noon briefing for 44 days now? Watch this site. The New York Times on Wednesday evening put online its faux humble contribution to the 100 editorials called for the Boston Globe, saying Trump's - studiously not named - "attacks on the press are particularly threatening to journalists in nations with a less secure rule of law and to smaller publications in the United States." The irony, now raised to the Times' James Bennet and others, is that their former colleague and bureau chief Alison Smale is, at the UN, engaged in an attack on a smaller investigative Inner City Press. After it was roughed up by UN Security on June 22 and July 3 while covering a speech by her new boss UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and his budget, Smale despite the conflict of interest about Inner City Press' coverage of her internal Town Hall meeting and whistleblowers say diversion of Swahili funds saw fit to ban Inner City Press from the UN for 43 days and counting now. She has put herself in charge of a "review" of Inner City Press involving anonymous complaints Inner City Press has not been shown. (That Smale's significant other, Russian pianist Sergei Dreznen told Inner City Press it should change and wear a suit or face her wrath is another matter.) Smale's UN Department of Public Information has told those who have asked, including for example even the Kazakhstan Mission to the UN as well as the Government Accountability Project and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press that her review and ruling will be issued soon - with no due process for Inner City Press, whose reporting has been injured for more than six weeks, on its beats from UN corruption to Yemen and Cameroon. This is the Times' legacy in press freedom? Tellingly, despite the New York Times previously covering Inner City Press at the UN, for example gushingly in 2007 and as a character study in 2016 (with quotes from Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric which have typically turned out to be false), this violent ouster and ban by ex-NYT Smale has garnered not a single word in the ostensibly pro free press Times, whose correspondents have been written to and are aware, despite coverage in The Independent (UK), the Columbia Journalism Review, Fox, POLITICO and even a note in CNN. We'll have more on this.
On August 17, Smale after a 45 day "review" that did not include a single interview with Inner City Press issues a lifetime ban on its entry into the UN. It was noted not only in BuzzFeed and The Hill, but in the largely anti-Trump Press Freedom Tracker, here. But from the New York Times, nothing. Since then, a two-page New York Post story, here. And still no financial disclosure from Smale. Instead, a telling tweets / re-tweets by Smale of the NY Times, and of UK Minister Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, here. And more hypocrisy: Smale virtue-signaling on NYT internship policies, here, while the UN continues unpaid internships. No due process to oust for life critical media: Smale is a Censor. Inner City Press submitted material to the NYT editorial pages and James Bennet - no response. Inner City Press emailed the NYT's three UN correspondents, Rick Gladstone, rickg [at] nytimes.com, Somini Sengupta sengupta [at]nytimes.com, and the newer but no more responsive Michael schwirtz [at] nytimes.com - and days later, nothing, to this: "I'm requesting that you / the NYT report on this: the UN's ex-NYT Alison Smale as USG of DPI on Friday imposing a lifetime ban on me, with no due process, no appeal. The letter is attached. My rebuttal(s) so far are online at http://www.innercitypress.com/unguterres4smalebansicpmoroccoscam081818.html The reasons given are bogus - the warning letters, one the product of a complaint from the Mission of Morocco whose policy on Western Sahara I often question, the other a complaint from a DPI official who didn't like an article I wrote. How can I be banned from the UN for this? Most pressingly, how can Smale and SG Guterres block me from covering next month's General Assembly high level week, which I've covered for 12 years? The deadline to accredit is September 5. If I have to, I will cover it from the street (a practice Smale called derogatory, but see "On Cameroon Inner City Press Video Guterres' Smale Calls Derogatory for Lifetime Ban Remonetized by YouTube.") I do not believe the UN should, or legitimately can, target, rough up, suspend and now ban for life a critical journalist. I am requesting that you cover this, or work so another NYT reporter does. It is UN (and beyond) story. Since the NYT reported Inner City Press' entry into the UN, it would seem it would cover its being roughed up, suspended and now banned for life, on such bogus grounds, particularly at this time and given The Times' advocacy for press freedom and access elsewhere." And days later - nothing. We'll have more on this. Tellingly, while one might expect the UN Department of Public Information to be more public than other of Security General Antonio Guterres' departments, the chief of DPI Alison Smale is not even on the public disclosure list as of August 16, 2018. What could explain it? Since DPI has all day and a bent to propagandize, one can imagine the excuse being that Smale was only awarded the position on 9 August 2017, after, say the USG of Counter Terrorism who is listed: he was named in June 2017. But the excuse breaks down: making public disclosure, here, of a property in Moldova, is Natalia Gherman who was only awarded her UNRCCA position on 15 September 2017, more than a month after Smale. So why isn't Smale in the public financial disclosure list? Isn't this particularly inappropriate for a former Berlin bureau chief of the New York Times, which calls for such disclosures by public official like Smale is, but doesn't act like? We'll have more on this, and on other disclosures: some don't even fill out the Assets section, only Outside Activities, for example. Why have Guterres and Smale, and their non-responsive spokesman Stephane Dujarric, banned Inner City Press from the UN and the noon briefing for 44 days now? Watch this site. The New York Times on Wednesday evening put online its faux humble contribution to the 100 editorials called for the Boston Globe, saying Trump's - studiously not named - "attacks on the press are particularly threatening to journalists in nations with a less secure rule of law and to smaller publications in the United States." The irony, now raised to the Times' James Bennet and others, is that their former colleague and bureau chief Alison Smale is, at the UN, engaged in an attack on a smaller investigative Inner City Press. After it was roughed up by UN Security on June 22 and July 3 while covering a speech by her new boss UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and his budget, Smale despite the conflict of interest about Inner City Press' coverage of her internal Town Hall meeting and whistleblowers say diversion of Swahili funds saw fit to ban Inner City Press from the UN for 43 days and counting now. She has put herself in charge of a "review" of Inner City Press involving anonymous complaints Inner City Press has not been shown. (That Smale's significant other, Russian pianist Sergei Dreznen told Inner City Press it should change and wear a suit or face her wrath is another matter.) Smale's UN Department of Public Information has told those who have asked, including for example even the Kazakhstan Mission to the UN as well as the Government Accountability Project and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press that her review and ruling will be issued soon - with no due process for Inner City Press, whose reporting has been injured for more than six weeks, on its beats from UN corruption to Yemen and Cameroon. This is the Times' legacy in press freedom? Tellingly, despite the New York Times previously covering Inner City Press at the UN, for example gushingly in 2007 and as a character study in 2016 (with quotes from Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric which have typically turned out to be false), this violent ouster and ban by ex-NYT Smale has garnered not a single word in the ostensibly pro free press Times, whose correspondents have been written to and are aware, despite coverage in The Independent (UK), the Columbia Journalism Review, Fox, POLITICO and even a note in CNN. We'll have more on this.
Inner City Press on July 5 was told at the UN gate that it was banned from entering any UN premises, the day after it filed a criminal complaint against UN Security Lieutenant Ronald Dobbins and another for physically removing it from covering the July 3 meeting about the UN's $6.7 billion peacekeeping budget, as witnessed and essentially cheered on by Secretary General Antonio Guterres' Assistant SG Christian Saunders, tearing its reporter's shirt, painfully and intentionally twisting his arm and slamming shut and damaging his laptop. Video here. Columbia Journalism Review here.
On August 11, amid a now 41 day ongoing “review” of Inner City Press that has shifted from the initial charge of being in the building too long on July 3 covering the Budget Committee meeting to undefined “harassment” of unnamed off the record correspondents, the murky role of Alison Smale, a former bureau chief of the New York Times which speaks so much of attacks on the press from Washington, in attacking the Press at the UN is coming into focus. Smale never responded to a single one of Inner City Press e-mails since September 2017, even as she openly cavorted with retired corporate media, even on camera. Contrary to the wider NYT's purported celebration of aggressive investigative press, Smale has attacked the most investigative and, perhaps, aggressive of UN press. She retweets little but the NYT; she has said her focus is making Guterres look better. Why has she not recused herself from "reviewing" the critical Press? There has already been filed a detailed misconducted complaint filed with the Secretary General, and she has apparently given up on trying to respond to the second, detailed request for answers from the Government Accountability Project. Has Smale become, tongue firmly in cheek, akin to Aung San Suu Kyi, previously vaguely associated with freedom once, with the power to act, the totalitarian or merely elitist impulse becomes clear? While the NYT publisher finger waggles, what of Smale's elitist censoring, featuring a Kafkaesque star chamber in which the allegations of unnamed corporate and state media are taken as true, with no opportunity to be heard? Smale has among other things been blocking Press coverage not only of UN corruption but of the slaugher in Cameroon, for 41 days and counting. We'll have more on this.
Guterres' spokesman Farhan Haq has told Fox News: “there have been a number of allegations from fellow journalists that Lee has harassed them over the years. 'A lot of journalists have not just been harassed but threatened by him and that’s a problem,' Haq said.”
That last line is extraordinary. Without identifying a single one of these "lot of journalists," Haq declares their anonymous allegations to be true: "HAVE not just been harassed but threatened me him." This stands in contrast to the UN not accepting - in the case of Alison Smale and Stephane Dujarric, trying to not even acknowledge receiving - Inner City Press' written, on the record allegations complete with exhibits. It's called favoritism, and censorship.
This same Farhan Haq recently answered one of Inner City Press' written questions, about why Guterres had taken no action on its documented exclusive May 24 report for which it received threats (and subsequent letter to Guterres and Smale) that through presumptive nepotism, management of the UN Security Council's website had been given to John van Rosendaal, the photographer husband of Kyoko Shiotani, the chief of staff of Guterres' Under Secretary General for Political Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo, previously US Deputy Ambassador to the UN under Susan Rice and Samantha Power. Haq responded, "If there are allegations of misconduct they should be taken to the internal oversight offices and mechanisms. Unfounded allegations do not constitute a formal complaint." So how does Haq for the UN now deem anonymous allegations against Inner City Press not only as formal complaints, and as true?
This is Kafkaesque...
