As CPJ Celebrates Select Journalists in Waldorf, Silence in UN on Censorship

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 25 -- At Manhattan's Waldorf Astoria hotel a crowd of media's elite, the men in tuxedos, will tonight celebrate select journalists from Iran, Russia, South Africa, Vietnam and Burma -- which calls itself Myanmar.

  These are all fine and heroic journalists, but Inner City Press and the UN-based Free UN Coalition for Access are left with questions. The selection by the Committee to Protect Journalists seems one-sided, without even a tip of the cap, or bow-tie, to James Risen or James Rosen, prosecuted the the US, much less journalists killed in Eastern Ukraine by forces based in Kyiv. 

   Or take the cases of Ethiopia's Zone 9 bloggers and Temesgen Desalegn, which were tellingly ignored by CPJ when on a panel at the UN on November 3. That day the UN held its event for the first International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists. Not a single question from a journalist was taken.  CPJ was on the panel.

 Also speaking from the podium was for example UNESCO's Deputy Director General Getachew Engida of Ethiopia, a country which just sentenced to three years in jail journalist  Desalegn.

This journalist's imprisonment, for “provocation,” is hardly low profile; either is that of the Ethopian Zone 9 Bloggers. But the moderator, UNESCO's George Papagiannis, did not raise the issue, even as he purported to read out congratulatory live-tweets about the event.

  (IFEX to its credit did reply to one of @InnerCityPress' tweets questioning the event and how it was run, here. By another, it was suggested that maybe Engida, even with his many UN system posts, is a dissident from Ethiopia. But it does not seem like it: see recent photo here.)

Nor did any of the other panelists raise it: Joel Simon of CPJ, Greece's Ambassador, Columbia University's Agnes Callamard. The lone media panelist, from Al Arabiya, spoke without irony about naming and shaming countries which jail critics for mere tweets: many in the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula.

Inner City Press as media, and the new Free UN Coalition for Access, had this question ready:

“about an underpinning to deadly attacks on journalist: the idea that they are parties to a conflict, or can be prosecuted for their reporting on national security. Can the panel, particularly the Deputy Director General of UNESCO, comment on Ethiopia jailing journalist Temesgen Desalegn for three years for “provocation”? Or, to be fair, the prosecutions here in the US of James Rosen, James Risen and Barrett Brown, set to be sentenced on November 24? Of the breaking up of meetings of reporters in Sri Lanka, a country in which journalists have been killed or “disappeared,” as in the case of Prageeth. What is the relation of such prosecutions to the actual killing of journalists?”

But, as noted, the hour and a half long panel took not a single question from a journalist. At the day's UN noon briefing, Inner City Press asked Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Stephane Dujarric if Ban while in Ethiopia recently to make it the third largest UN “duty station” had in any way raised the case of journalist Temesgen Desalegn. 

 Apparently not. This is how the UN -- and CPJ, to some extent -- work, or don't.

  When CPJ was shown of censorship within the UN itself, it did nothing.  Then president of the UN Correspondents Association Giampaolo Pioli demanded that a Press story about him renting one of his Manhattan apartments to Palitha Kohona, Sri Lanka's ambassador, then unilaterally agreeing to use UNCA to screen the Sri Lankan government's war crimes denial film in the UN. 

  When Inner City Press refused to take the story down, instead offering to publish a letter to the editor of any length, Pioli made good on this threat to try to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN. Documents obtained from Voice of America under FOIA here, here (AFP) and here (Reuters - which also tried to censor its complaint to the UN, here, via Electronic Frontier Foundation's Chilling Effects project.

 What did CPJ do or say about this? Unlike the New York Civil Liberties Union, here, CPJ did and said nothing - like the Sri Lankan government, it uses UNCA as one of its ways into the UN. It is inconvenient to look at this. But now, indicative of UNCA's decay, Pioli is set without competition to return to head UNCA. So will CPJ'slongstanding marriage of convenience at the UN continue apace? Watch this site.

  CPJ's 2014 International Press Freedom Awardees are Aung Zaw (The Irrawaddy, Burma -- a/k/a Myanmar), Siamak Ghaderi (Freelance, Iran), Mikhail Zygar, (Dozhd, Russia), Ferial Haffajee (City Press, South Africa). 2013 Imprisoned Awardee Nguyen Van Hai (Dieu Cay, Vietnam). 

   

At UN, Ban Ki-moon's New Spokesperson Pick Raises Questions of Censorship, Due Process, Impartiality: FUNCA

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 19 -- Putting a face on the succession of UN spokespeople, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon came to the noon briefing on February 19 to announce that Stephane Dujarric is slated to take over from Martin Nesirky on March 10.  Video here, from Minute 4:10.

  The pick raises a number of questions that will be explored in the next 19 days. But threshold questions include the need for impartiality, the need to strictly separate the roles of spokesperson and Media Accreditation, and Dujarric's position on, and role in, censorship.

  The last, on censorship, is something of a litmus test. 

   In his current position which includes overseeing UN Media Accreditation, Dujarric received (and in some cases appears to have solicited) anti-Press complaints. 

  Despite a subsequent request by the New York Civil Liberties Union, Dujarric has yet to agree that the UN should provide due process to journalists who are subjects of complaints by competitors: to be notified of and have a right to respond to the complaints, in a content neutral and impartial system.

  One of the complaints addressed to and received by Dujarric was from Lou Charbonneau, then as now Reuters UN bureau chief. The complaint said that it was "for the record" (UN Media Accreditation still does not acknowledge a journalist's right to see his or her Accreditation record including complaints). 

 As elsewhere in the UN, anonymous whistleblowers and leakers attempt to substitute for rights of due process and transparency.

Inner City Press obtained a number of the complaints, including the first of Charbonneau's complaints and anotherunder the US Freedom of Information Act. 

  But in August 2013, despite the fact that Charbonneau's first complaint said it was "for the record," Charbonneau made a Digital Millennium Copyright Act filing with Google, claiming that

"The copyrighted material is a private email I wrote in April 2012 and for which I never gave permission to be published. It has been published on a blog and appears in on the first page of search results for my name and the firm I work for, Reuters. It can be seen here: http://www.innercitypress.com/reutersLC3unmalu.pdf"

  A complaint to UN Media Accreditation, particularly saying that it is "for the record," is not plausibly subject to copyright -- Reuters' ill-logic would apply to any leaked document. But Charbonneau filed the above-quoted under oath, and his "for the record" complaint to Dujarric has been blocked -- or banned -- from Google's search. 

   This is censorship. What is Dujarric's position on it?

  After discovering under the Freedom of Information Act that not only Reuters / Louis Charbonneau, Agence France-Presse and Voice of America but "UNCA" had met with Dujarric's Media Accreditation pushing to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN -- Dujarric never notified Inner City Press of this -- along with another independent media Inner City Press founded the alternative Free UN Coalition for Access.

  Dujarric was put in charge of "dealing" with FUNCA, and among other things sent a letter attempt to preclude it from working on reform. It drove a wedge between FUNCA and the wider Department of Public Information, but FUNCA's work has continued, as far away as Somaliland and including through @FUNCA_info as close as the privatized or outsourced UNTV webcast that Dujarric has also been in charge of.

  To have not been impartial, to have insisted particularly despite this history on a "one party" system, was not appropriate while atop UN Media Accreditation - but it would be impermissible to continue, allow or enable as UN Spokesperson.

  A question now is to ensure that as spokesperson, Dujarric plays absolutely no more role in UN Media Accreditation, an essential separately of powers. Along with questions of favoritism and censorship, these issues will continue to be explored as March 10 approaches. Watch this site.

   

Miranda Warning: Pointing to Egypt, CPJ Goes Soft on UK and Reuters, Spying Ignored, New Needed, FUNCA

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 19 -- The UK's nine hour detention of journalist Glenn Greenwald's partner David Miranda gave rise to outrage worldwide on Monday, even in the UN Security Council (as Inner City Press covered here.)

  But for the old-school Committee to Protect Journalists, the focus was too much. By Monday evening, CPJ's Joel Simon opined on Twitter, "Not to minimize gravity of #Miranda detention but journalists being rounded up in #Egypt."

  Well, yes. But beyond the trend, far from unknown to Inner City Press, to reflexively seek a worse problem elsewhere, this resonated with CPJ's unwillingness even in the face of documentary evidence to deploy its journalist-defense rhetoric on the UN, the UK and as connects the two or three, Reuters.

  Inner City Press showed CPJ that Reuters UN bureau chief Louis Charbonneau had tried to get it thrown out of the UN(FOIA documents here and here) -- and CPJ replied that it had more pressing work in Mexico.

  Then CPJ big wigs including Rob Mahoney openly cavorted, in a session sponsored by UNCA which has become the UN Censorship Alliance, with Charbonneau, criticizing every place but where they were: the UN.

  (It's like Human Rights Watch -- they so want easy access to the UN and the cache that supposedly brings that they go soft on the UN itself. CPJ has been shown that the UN has no content neutral accreditation rules, but while the NYCLU spoke out, CPJ did not. Surely North Korea called.)

Now Inner City Press has shown with documents that Reuters bureau chief Charbonneau gave internal UNCA anti-Press documents to the UN's chief accreditation official,three minutes after promising not to. Story here, audio here,document here. But will CPJ, or at least old school Joel Simon, just keep "partnering"?

  CPJ is an old school organization. Which is fine. But new energy, and new formations, are needed. The Free UN Coalition for Access and affiliates will not turn back. And we can ask about and work on Egypt and the UN's Censorship Alliance with Reuters all at the same time. Watch this site.

   

As Samantha Power Cites Syria & South Sudan, UN Has Photo Ops But No First Amendment: A Problem from Hell, Day 1

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 5 -- There were four new Ambassadors presenting their credentials Monday to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, but the managed media throng was for only one: Samantha Power of the United States.

Earlier on Monday, also at the UN, the foreign ministers ofBrazil, Uruguay, Argentina and Venezuela (which Power called a "regime" in her Senate confirmation hearing) had told a different gaggle of media about meeting Ban about US spying and Edward Snowden.

  But Power in her remarks in the UN lobby did not allude to any of that. She cited "mass atrocities in Syria and South Sudan," saying that the US would work with the UN on these. Inner City Press wondered: why South Sudan and not Khartoum, Darfur?

  Why no mention of the Eastern Congo, including the UN still supporting the Army units which committed mass rape in Minova in November, 2012?

  Power took no questions. The next stop was up on the 38th floor, the ritual photo op. First former US official, now the UN's top political adviser Jeffrey Feltman came in, and Ban's chief of staff Susana Malcorra, from Argentina. What might her views be of l'affaire Snowden if not to say, Malvinas?

  Then came Samantha Power's husband Cass Sunstein. One wonders what he would make of the UN's lawlessness, represented by its terse "dismissal of claims" about bringing cholera to Haiti, or its lack of a Freedom of Information Act or even of content neutral accreditation and due process rules for journalists.

  (This, the new Free UN Coalition for Access is raising, following the UN's failure to respond to the NYCLU last year, here. The slogan? The First Amendment Stops on First Avenue.)

  The credentials were presented; the media was swept out with the option of waiting an hour for Argentine president Cristina Fernandez or rushing to the Security Council stakeout for Argentine Ambassador Perceval's read-out of a Council press statement condemning the attack on the Indian consultate in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

  One can imagine a defense of all this: there are complaints that the UN is getting too anonymous, now there will be some complaints about a cult of personality. But to some it's the worst of both worlds: while the US is the superstar at the UN, other countries are ignored, even as they are spied on.

The application of Samantha Power's book A Problem from Hell to the UN would be interesting. We'll be here. Watch this site.

   

UN Threatens To Ban Inner City Press for Hanging a Sign of Free UN Coalition for Access, Alternative to UN Censorship Alliance

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 24 -- On a day when the UN refused requests by Inner City Press to explain why it continues to support units of the Congolese Army which committed 135 rapes in Minova in late November, and began a witch hunt against a UN Mine Action Service whistleblower in Somalia, its Department of Public Information ratcheted up threats to throw Inner City Press out of the UN, or withdraw it accreditation.

   What are the charges? 

   Exclusive reporting on UNMAS in Somalia sharing genetic information from bombings with US intelligence? Exposure of UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous for having covered up the 135 Minova rapes, including at a stakeout where Ladsous' spokesman seized the microphone supposedly managed by DPI?

  No - Inner City Press' sin has been to co-found the Free UN Coalition for Access as an alternative to DPI's and Ban Ki-moon partner UNCA, and to put a simple FUNCA sign on the door of its office. Here is a photo of the sign, here.

   Monday afternoon DPI sent the following e-mail to Inner City Press:

Subject: signs on the door
From: Hua Jiang [at] un.org
Date: Mon, Jun 24, 2013 at 3:52 PM
To: Inner City Press
Cc: Stephane Dujarric [at] un.org, Isabelle Broyer [at] un.org

Dear Matthew,

We have taken note that you have not until now remove the signs on your office door as per the United Nations Guidelines on Media Access, despite repeated requests communicated to you by emails and verbally by DPI officials.

We reserve the right to take actions according to the Guidelines which stipulate that those violate the rules may have their accreditation withdrawn or suspended.

Best

Hua Jiang
Chief, Press Service, UN DPI

  Of the two individuals cc-ed, the first received and even solicited, including to his private non-UN email address, stealth requests to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN from Louis Charbonneau of Reuters, Agence France Presse,Voice of America and others. 

  The second led a non-consensual raid of Inner City Press' office on March 18, 2013, took photos of the Press' desk and bookshelf and shared them beyond DPI (they laterappeared in BuzzFeed, leaked by a “Concerned UN Reporter” account after BuzzFeed called Ban's spokesman for comment on the raid.)

   Having to stop covering the day's Security Council meeting about Sexual Violence and Conflict, the following response to DPI was prepared and sent:

Hello. The Free UN Coalition for Access has among other things asked, so far without answer, how it is legitimate that the UNCA Executive Committee member next door has pro-UN signs all over his door and has not been asked to take them down.

Unless this is just some kind of witch hunt against FUNCA (or any alternative to UNCA), that should be explained.

Also, separately, the Media Accreditation Guidelines do not provide any exception or exemption for UNCA. Are you trying to outlaw any alternative to UNCA?

Finally, Peter Launsky-Tieffenthal (who I will cc) after a one hour discussion last week told me he would be sending me, in writing, some sort of DPI proposed road map for FUNCA. While objecting to the idea of the UN seeking to dictate the corporate or other form of a free press group that seeks to advocate for greater media access -- where are the promised “lines”?

And given the failure to explain the different with the pro-UN signs, the legitimacy of trying to outlaw FUNCA signs while leaving two UNCA signs up, and the failure to send the promised lines, can you further explain the threat in your email?

Also, what happened on the request by the NY Civil Liberties Union last July that DPI make public rules for withdrawing or suspending accreditation, which you seem to be doing here -- for the posting of a sign of a media freedom organization?

Awaiting your written response,

Matthew Russell Lee, for the Free UN Coalition for Access
Office c/o Inner City Press, Room S 303, UN HQ, NY NY 10017
Email: funca [at] FUNCA.info - www.FUNCA.info

And we're still waiting. 

While not explaining a single thing about the lawless threat, this arrived:

Subject: Re: Request you acknowledge receipt RE Please explain double standard for pro-UN signs, UNCA signs, failure to provide promised "road map," failure to adopt rules as requested by NYCLU
From: Hua Jiang [at] un.org
Date: Mon, Jun 24, 2013 at 5:04 PM
To: Inner City Press
Cc: Stephane Dujarric [at] un.org, Isabelle Broyer [at] un.org, Peter Launsky-Tieffenthal@un.org

Dear Matthew,

We have received your email.

Best

Hua Jiang
Chief, Press Service, UN DPI

  And? Watch this site.

As UNSC Re-Opens Media Workspace Is Cut, Banning Press by UN & Partners, UNCA: Protest by FUNCA, Day 1

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 3 -- In front of the UN Security Council before it was closed for repairs, there was a media work-table from which to cover it. The table was maintained during the relocation to the UN basement under the General Assembly until May 31.

  But today when the Security Council re-opened there was no table. On May 21, Inner City Press saw and report, and through the new Free UN Coalition for Access opposed, a rule which Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's office says it and the other parties including the old UN Correspondents Association agreed to:

"f. The Security Council stakeout area, including the Turkish Lounge, is not to be used as a permanent workspace for the media. When the Council is not in session, correspondents should minimize the amount of time in the area, unless interviewing or conversing with a U.N. delegate or official."

From May 21 right into the weekend of the move, Inner City Press and FUNCA worked to get the rules suspended or modified, asking about it at six noon briefing and speaking with the Department of Public Information on May 31, and even on Saturday, June 1, both with respect to the so-called Turkish Lounge.

  Inner City Press was asked to hold off writing to allow a final pre-move check to take place -- and Inner City Press agreed, and abided by it. But this morning the Council opened, with the UK's Mark Lyall Grant hoping bilateral meetings in the Council, and there was no table.

  Where was UNCA during on this? Its 2013 president Pamela Falk of CBS, who claimed to have not seen the draft of the rules that FUNCA was given, was robo-tweeting stories written by others. Her first vice president Louis Charbonneau of Reuters was promoting the mega-corporation he works for, and himself.

  As Inner City Press has shown, the Gulf and Western big media who rule UNCA not only don't care about the table -- they generally sit upstairs waiting to be spoon-fed documents and spin by "their" missions -- but actively sought its elimination.

  This was both a matter of making it harder for smaller investigative media to cover the Council, and some say a way to "get back" at article they haven't liked. In 2012 UNCA board member Voice of America, saying it had the support of Reuters, Agence France Presse through Tim Witcher, andothers, asked the UN's Stephane Dujarric to "review" the accreditation of Inner City Press.

This was exposed using the US Freedom of Information Act, and the New York Civil Liberties Union wrote to the head of DPI asking to know the due process rights of journalists at the UN. (No rights, no real answer.)

  In 2013 it was Dujarric, with the head of DPI away, who wrote to Inner City Press and FUNCA, even before responding to the detailed proposed amendments submitted, that there will be no table. On May 31, the UN couldn't even state the status of the comments or the rules. But as the Security Council re-opened this morning on June 3, there is no table. We will have more, much more, on this. Watch this site.

UN's Dujarric Fields Requests to Disaccredit ICP From UNCA Trolls, As from VOA: Now What?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 5 -- UN media accreditation official Stephane Dujarric on June 21, 2012 thanked Voice of America for having asked him to "review" the accreditation of Inner City Press. This document was obtained from VOA under the US Freedom of Information Act.

  Once the request, which VOA said was supported by Reuters and Agence France Presse, Bloomberg News and UN Correspondents Association Executive Committee members, was exposed Dujarric reverted to telling Inner City Press how to cover Ban Ki-moon and his Peacekeeping chief, Herve Ladsous (video).

  Now, past midnight on May 4-5, 2013 one of the anonymous social media accounts associated with UNCA has directed itself at Dujarric asking why Inner City Press is accredited to cover the UN. 

  This is an account which began with a photograph taken behind the UN Security Council stakeout. It has launched defenses of, yes, Reuters, Voice of America and CBS News,base of UNCA President Pamela Falk (video).

  So what will Dujarric do? Last month he told Inner City Press to contact him "urgently" about a single tweet mentioning Ladsous, his new Police Adviser, and World War II -- through which France "won" its Security Council veto, and thus the power to give UN Peacekeeping to Ladsous, the fourth Frenchman in a row in the position.

  Dujarric said the tweet "crossed all bounds," and said he was just "giving Inner City Press a chance."

  But what of social media messages openly directed to Dujarric asking him to throw Inner City Press out, after having falsely alleged Inner City Press is funded by terrorists, which gave rise to death threats?

What do Dujarric and Ban Ki-moon's UN do about this? 

  There are reasons, even beyond his defense to the Free UN Coalition for Access and the NYCLU of a continuing lack of due process rules for journalists at the UN, that these UNCA trolls think they'll get a sympathetic ear and action from Dujarric. Watch this site.