After Stonewalling on Ban Ki-moon's Qatar-Funded Plane, UN Won't Tell Inner City Press How Ban Got to Iraq, Is Asked to List Ban's Last 10 Free Trips

By Matthew Russell Lee, Follow up on exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, July 24, more here -- How can it be that the UN does not disclose when Secretary General Ban Ki-moon accepts free travel on a private jet, and on July 24 would not tell Inner City Press how and on whose plane Ban flew to Iraq? Video here.

   This follows the UN's only belated acknowledgement, after Inner City Press asked several times, that Ban began his Gaza-related tour by flying on a Qatar-funded jet to Qatar, then Cairo.

 Bigger picture, does the UN, while claiming to abide by its own stated ethics rules, simply not have time for them and waive them?  When Inner City Press asked on July 23, UN Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq said, if you are here as a lawyer, "You're not entitled to be at the noon briefing."Video here from Minute 4:26.

 Haq has denied that there is any conflict of interest in accepting the Qatar-funded travel, but has still not said when or how an opinion was sought from the UN's Ethics Office. Video here and embedded below. Inner City Press on July 23 asked, in writing:

"This is a request for the the entire audio file of the Secretary General's press availability in Jerusalem at which the US State Department transcribed the question, “Mr. Secretary-General, do you think it’s appropriate for Qatar to be paying for your flight here” and this answer:

SECRETARY-GENERAL BAN: No – ladies and gentlemen, this is the 15th day since the crisis began. We do not have much time to weigh the rules.

See, http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2014/07/229662.htm
[since changed on State Department website from this archived version, here]

"This is also a request to be informed if, when and how the UN Ethics Office was asked about the Secretary General accepting the gift of travel on the Qatar-funded, and the UN's estimate of the value of the gift; a statement of all rules applicable to receipt of this gift, and how much has been spent on Secretary General travel in the past two years. On deadline."

  Here was the UN's "response," with neither the audio file, nor the budget or financial information:

To: Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com
From: UN Spokesperson - Do Not Reply [at] un.org
Date: Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 4:59 PM

The State Department has acknowledged that its transcription was in error and has corrected the record, please see link below.

http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2014/07/229662.htm

The Ethics Office has agreed on the need to use the chartered plane because of the Secretary-General's need to travel to a number of locations in the Middle East at short notice, The Ethics Office notes that the Secretary-General interacts with all 193 Member States, and he is scrupulous at maintaining the independence of the UN when engaged in his political and diplomatic undertakings.

   This did not answer "when and how the UN Ethics Office was asked about the Secretary General accepting the gift of travel on the Qatar-funded, and the UN's estimate of the value of the gift; a statement of all rules applicable to receipt of this gift." 

  And so at the July 24 noon briefing, Inner City Press asked Haq to provide information about the last ten free trips provided to Ban or his senior staff by states or others. Haq cut the question off, belatedly providing a UN budget Secretary General travel figure -- $2,190,300 for 2014 / 2015 -- but not explaining why he hadn't simply emailed this to Inner City Press.

  Haq claimed the deadline was unclear. So that's why he held the information back? Here's the July 24, 2014, video:

  On the audio file, Haq referred to UN Radio. Here it is, for download at mp3 - but it cuts off the question asked of Ban about the Qatar-funded plane, that the State Department transcribed. 

The UN has previously censored its transcripts to omit the Free UN Coalition for Access and what was said to Ban; when Haq answered Inner City Press that Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir was dead, he "corrected" this in the transcript without ever telling Inner City Press that his answer was wrong, or had been "disappeared" in the transcript.

  On July 24 after Inner City Press asked for basic UN financial information -- last ten free trips -- Haq said, "You are not a prosecutor." Video here.
And here's the July 23, 2014 video:

On July 21, the UN belatedly answered Inner City Press' July 19 inquiry about Secretary General Ban Ki-moon accepting a free Qatar-funded, British registered private jet for his current travel about Gaza. Video hereand embedded below.

  On July 23 in Jerusalem, Ban Ki-moon was asked,"do you think it’s appropriate for Qatar to be paying for your flight here?"

  And Ban Ki-moon responded, "No – ladies and gentlemen, this is the 15th day since the crisis began.  We do not have much time to weigh the rules."

   Inner City Press, and now the Free UN Coalition for Access, have been pursuing this question, including with Transparency International which answered "it would seem that the Secretary General would have had to have been previous clearance to undertake such a paid trip by the Qatari government. This question should be posed to the Office of Ethics."

  And so on July 22, Inner City Press asked Ban's deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq if the UN Ethics Office was asked about accepting the free Qatar-funded private jet flights.

  Haq replied:

“I'm aware that as a standard policy, we inform the Ethics Office of all such offers...I don't know about this particular case. I know it for past cases, every time I have asked the Ethics Office about this, they have talked about being informed about this... They do approve these on the case of exceptional circumstances.”

Inner City Press asked Haq to get an answer from the Ethics Office, if they were asked before Ban began his current trip in the Qatar-funded jet.

Haq said, “I can do this... This is what has happened several times in the past.” 

  But apparently not this time. Ban said, "We do not have much time to weigh the rules." We'll stay on this.

   Should the UN Secretary General in a mediation attempt accept free travel from a country with a particular interest in the conflict to be mediated?

   What review should take place? What disclosures should be made, and when? From the UN's July 21 transcript, video here from Minute 31:

Inner City Press: you are saying that the use of private planes, generically if necessary, is signed off by the ethics office, but my question is, private planes provided by anyone? Would the Secretary-General, would he accept such service from any Member State, or would he accept it from corporations? The question becomes, given that particular countries have different views of the conflict, what review is made before accepting a particular country’s contribution?

Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq: Well, we do have, like I said, an ethics office and a legal office that can look into these things and see whether something is appropriate or not.

Inner City Press: Was this particular flight checked or you’re saying there’s a generic ruling in advance that any private plane is okay?

Deputy Spokesman Haq: No, I don’t think there’s a generic ruling about this, but certainly, if you need to justify this for essential needs, and something like this, a trip that the Secretary-General was able to embark on and made the decision on just at the end of last week and then had to travel, starting Saturday evening, something like that would have been extremely hard or basically impossible to do in a different sort of way.

Inner City Press: I’m asking because in the budget Committee, often many, particularly developing world countries, they say that things should be funded out of the UN’s general budget rather than taking voluntary contributions from States that then have influence. So, my question is, isn’t there a travel budget? We’ve asked in this room many times to know what the budget is, so I’d still like to know that. But, if there is a budget, why wasn’t the general UN budget used for this rather than taking a specific gift from a specific country? That’s the question.

Deputy Spokesman Haq: The worry is, of course, if you run out of money early, does that mean you can’t travel, even if there’s a crisis? In this case, there was a crisis that necessitated sudden travel.

  Inner City Press broke the story on July 19 -- credit has been given, for example, by Newsweek, here -- and has been asking Ban's spokespeople for disclosure and what safeguards are in place.

   Lead spokesman Dujarric replied but did not answer on July 19. When he called in to the UN noon briefing from Cairo on July 21, Inner City Press asked him again on whose plane Ban is traveling. 

  This time, Dujarric answered that Ban is flying on a Qatar government funded, UK registered plane.  But he did not answer if there are any safeguards against influence or conflicts of interest. Would Ban accept free flights from any UN member state? From anyone at all?

  Inner City Press asked Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq, who said the the UN Ethics Office said taking private planes is okay when necessary.

  But private planes from ANYONE? Any member state? A corporation? There have been no real answers, yet. But there need to be.

 Diplomats told Inner City Press that Ban would fly -- on a Qatari plane -- to Qatar, Ramallah (but not for now Gaza), Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait.

  The diplomats who complained to Inner City Press questioned not only Ban taking free flights from a particular country, but also how the use (and landing) of a Qatari plane will play in, for example, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

 Inner City Press asked Ban's top two spokespeople, and the spokesperson listed as on weekend duty, the following:

"Please state whether the Secretary General is accepting free transportation from any member state or outside party for his current trip to the region concerning the Gaza crisis, and if so please explain the reason and any safeguards in place against influence or conflict of interest.

"Such disclosure should be common practice; if necessary, note that former Spokesperson Nesirky did answer such Press questions, for example concerning the Secretary General flying on a UAE plane (see sample below). On deadline, thank you in advance.

From: UN Spokesperson - Do Not Reply [at] un.org
Subject: Your questions
To: Matthew Russell Lee [at] InnerCityPress.com
Date: Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 3:00 PM

- The UAE Government provided an aircraft to fly the Secretary-General from Beirut to Abu Dhabi because of time constraints.

     Later on July 19, the following was received, which we publish in full 25 minutes after receipt:

From: Stephane Dujarric [at] un.org
Date: Sat, Jul 19, 2014 at 5:30 PM
Subject: Re: Press question if SG is accepting free travel from any member state or outside party, as was disclosed in 2012, on deadline, thanks
To: Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress [dot] com
Cc: FUNCA [at] funca.info

Dear Matthew, Thanks for your question and thanks for the draft answer. The logistical details of the SG's trip, including the travel arrangements are still being worked out. Once we are in a position to confirm them, i will revert.

best

Stephane Dujarric (Mr.)
Spokesman for the Secretary-General

  But obviously the "logistical details" of getting to Qatar were worked out - Ban had already been to Qatar, then Kuwait before Cairo.

  One asked, what can you solve if you can't even say how you got there?

  Inner City Press thanked Dujarric and his colleagues for the interim response and asked, "both Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Poroshenko's office say they have spoken with the Secretary General and give read-outs. Will a UN read-out be put out? If so, when? If not, why not?"

  On July 21, Inner City Press asked Haq, who confirmed the calls took place but nothing about the contents. What is happened with the UN? TheFree UN Coalition for Access is pressing for reforms. We'll have more on this.

   

On Pakistan, UN Deputy Spox Farhan Haq Declares Journalist Hamid Mir Dead - Then Doctors Transcript

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 6 -- Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir was erroneously declared dead by the UN on Friday. 

  UN Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq, when Inner City Press asked about the suspension of the license of Mir's GEO News, declined to make any specific comment, but then said "regarding Hamid Mir, I believe the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization has put out some remarks about his death." Video here.

  There's a problem: Hamid Mir wasn't killed in the assassination attempt. He is not dead.

  Inner City Press noted the error, echoing Mark Twain's remark that "reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated." But how did the UN deal with this error?

  The UN simply removed what was actually said from its transcript, here. In the UN's transcript and dream world, Haq said "this attempt" rather than "his death." But that's NOT what Haq said.

  The UN and Haq never contacted Inner City Press to say, the answer given was incorrect, as they should have done.They simply doctored the transcript. How often do they do this?

  Here is how the UN published the transcript:

Question: Sure, I wanted to ask, in… in… in Pakistan, Geo News has had its license revoked, which is the company of whose anchor Hamid Mir was… had the assassination attempt on him. And I wonder, does the UN have any response to this, you know, large… one of the largest media there being… having its license revoked?

Deputy Spokesman: I believe that that’s a process that’s still being worked out in the court system, but as you’re aware, of course, we believe and the Secretary-General has repeatedly expressed [inaudible] that all media be free to go about their work without obstruction, so that’s his principle on that. Regarding Hamid Mir, I believe the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization [UNESCO] has put out some remarks about [this attempt]. Yes?

  Haq said, "remarks about HIS DEATH." Video here. 

It would seem that if the UN Spokesperson's Office gives an inaccurate answer to a journalist's question, before simply changing the answer in the transcript, they should contact the journalist whom they answered and say, that was incorrect. But no. This is the same Farhan Haq who told another media that Inner City Press' accurate reporting about Sri Lanka, war crimes and Vijay Nambiar was incorrect, here.

  On March 27, 2014, after the UN General Assembly voted on a Ukraine resolution and Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin prepared to speak at the GA stakeout, Inner City Press for the Free UN Coalition for Accesstweeted at the UN Spokesperson that the noon briefing should be briefly delayed.

  This was not without precedent at all -- on October 1, 2013 the Spokesperson's Office delayed the noon briefing during the entirety of a speech by Israel.

  After asking Churkin about Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's meeting in Ukraine with the leader of the Svoboda Party -- Churkin said it was disturbing as Svoboda has been characterized as racist -- and without any response from the Spokesperson's Office, Inner City Press ran to the briefing room, camera still uncovered, audio recorder still running, hoping to find the briefing not yet started or at least still going.

  Arriving there at 12:10 pm, the briefing was already over. Inner City Press went and told deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq, "I wish you'd delayed it" to allow coverage of both Churkin's stakeout and the noon briefing.

  Haq replied that there had been seven to eight people in the briefing room, so he began. (Actually, as the UN video shows, it was nearly empty and Haq joked, "Full house, I see" - click here to view.)

  When his Office delayed the briefing for Israel in October, there were many more people waiting, including Inner City Press. So, for FUNCA, Haq was asked what the policy is.

  Haq said, "Matthew, you want a policy where it's all about you." Audio here.

  Well, the UN and Ban's Spokesperson's Office should have a policy, both so journalists can know if and when to run, and so that countries are treated equally, whatever Ban or his spokespeople thinks of them, or whatever they are saying about Ban.

   A week into the tenure of new / old UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric, when Dujarric  phoned in a briefing from Moscow, the questions Haq chose for him all pointed in one direction, the type of favoritism growing ever worse at the UN.

  This was repeated this week in Haq's selection of questioners on Syria chemical weapons to Sigrid Kaag.

   Dujarric's deputy Farhan Haq, who ended his truncated eight minutes of Q&A on the "rest of the world" by chiding Inner City Press for asking too many questions -- actually, only South Sudan and a UN Staff Union protest against Ban Ki-moon's mobility plan -- selected for Dujarric only one type of question.

  In fact, the questions were repetitive, trying to get a statement from Ban even if only spokesperson-mediated that the Crimea referendum was illegal. Haq called on a series of executive committee members of the old UN Correspondents Association, which previously lobbied Dujarric to try to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN. Several of these, it has been noted there is no record of them writing or reporting about Ukraine. But this is how the UN works, or doesn't work, now.

   Earlier on March 20, the US announced a series of new sanctions including against Bank Rossiya. Inner City Press thought this should be asked to Dujarric in Moscow, if Ban or Putin or Lavrov had raised it. But none of those called on by Haq even asked the question.  We'll have more on this.

  Last week, Dujarric did not provide a Press requested read-out of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's meeting earlier in the week with Estonia's foreign minister, who was captured on leaked audio recounting that the same snipers may well have shot both police and protesters in Ukraine. No read-out?

  Adding to unanswered questions still not answered by March 27 ranging from Thailand to Terje Roed-Larsen, before 8 am on March 14 Inner City Press asked Dujarric:

  Please state if the Secretary General / Secretariat views the "invitation" from Thailand for the SG to become involved as valid, given questions raised about it in Thailand, see, http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/399785/surapong-seeks-to-quell-un-plan-revolt

In the most recent Situation Report on CAR (as of March 12) it is said

"Targeted violence against minority groups continues countrywide, including in Bangui. Over 20,000 people are besieged and threatened by armed militias in 18 different locations. The majority of them are calling for humanitarian assistance leaving these enclaves for safer areas in or outside the country."

Please confirm that the referred-to "minority groups" are Muslims, and if so please explain why the UN would not identify them as such.

Please state what if anything the UN system has done on Navi Pillay's January 20 statement that France's actions in CAR left Muslim communities vulnerable to attack.

The questions about dollar a year envoys, Nigeria, UN Global Compact member and money laundering / corruption probe, service of Haiti cholera case papers and UN Media Alert and others have not been responded to in any way - please explain.

  Here is the totality of Dujarric's office answers to the CAR question:

On the Central African Republic, officials throughout the UN system have identified specific minorities who have been targeted in specific incidents, and you will have seen the many statements and press releases concerning violence against Muslims.

  Tellingly, the question about UN Peacekeeping run by Herve Ladsous was not even mentioned in this cursory response, nor does the paragraph on CAR show any actual follow up to Navi Pillay's statement about France putting Muslims at risk. 

  These were the other questions asked by Inner City Press at 8 am on March 13:

-While still requesting response with regard to Mr. Roed-Larsen, Mr. Joseph V. Reed et al, here is a more systematic question:

Has the SG yet prepared the guidelines required by Resolution 67/255? Following the GA's decision on $1/year contracts in April 2013, how many individuals currently have $1/year contracts, and who are they?

To assist your answer:

A/RES/67/255, 73rd plenary meeting 12 April 2013 e, excerpt

...63. Stresses that one-dollar-a-year contracts should be granted only under exceptional circumstances and be limited to high-level appointments, and requests the Secretary-General to prepare guidelines regarding the use of these contracts, along the same lines of those established for when-actually-employed appointments, and to report thereon, in the context of his next overview report, to the General Assembly at the main part of its sixty-ninth session;

Third: What is the UN's (or UNMISS') response to South Sudan's information minister Michael Makuei saying “When you go and interview a rebel who ran away from here and you come and play that interview on government territory, and you know that man is not friendly -- this is not the meaning of journalism. You interview him outside and publish it, whatever you do, outside, but when you come and disseminate this poisonous information inside South Sudan, it is an offense.”

What is UNMISS' (or the UN's) response to that, and to Wau University students petition for the UN to leave Bahr al Ghazal. To assist your answering:

“Winnie Babihuga, the world body’s representative in Western Bahr el Ghazal state welcomed the student’s petition and promised to forward it to its headquarters in New York.”

Has the petition yet arrived? This is an ongoing request to be informed if and when it does.

  Even rushing to hold a ten minute briefing, the Spokesperson's Office hasn't answered questions posed TWO WEEKS AGO.
 
   Dujarric began on March 10 with questions raised two weeks ago (and before) about censorship and his replacement atop the News & Media Division and UN Accreditation UNanswered.

  Tellingly, some in the press briefing room applauded before Dujarric even said a word. He read a statement for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon about "The Ukraine."

  In the question and answer session, four of the first five questioners Dujarric called on were among the 15 executive committee members of theUnited Nations Correspondents Association, with which Dujarric has some history.

  Inner City Press asked if Ban Ki-moon had the Haiti cholera court papers taped to his residence door on January 20 -- no answer -- and for UN response to Channel 4's new video showing abuse by the military of Sri Lanka, from which the UN accepts peacekeepers and even Shavendra Silva as an adviser. (Dujarric said he hasn't seen the video; it is online here: warning, graphic).

  On the case against the UN for bringing cholera to Haiti, Inner City Press asked Dujarric to confirm that the court papers were taped to the door of Ban's residence on January. Dujarric declined to confirm - or deny - this.Video on Haiti (and Sri Lanka) here.

  As it did days ago, Inner City Press asked for the status of selecting Dujarric's replacement as head of the News and Media Division, in charge of UN media accreditation. No answer has been given about this status. This is of concern.

 A flier the Free UN Coalition for Access posted on this topic, on the "non-UNCA" bulletin board it advocated for, was torn down on March 7. At a second briefing, by the CTBTO, on March 10 Dujarric called first on UNCA, then on others. 

  When Inner City Press thanked CTBTO's Zerbo on behalf of FUNCA - the point is, there cannot be only one organization given UNCA's track record of attempted censorship and even more now with Dujarric's history with them -- Dujarric tried to move on (back to UNCA) before the related question on France's nuclear tests in the Pacific was answered. 

  It is a new era, requiring a new approach.

  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 a filing under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act -- straight up censorship. What does Dujarric say?

In fact, Dujarric solicited complaints against Inner City Press from otherbig-media UNCA board members, through a private, including through non-UN email address. Freedom of Information Act responses show thatUNCA 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.

  So on March 20, it was a UNCA executive committee top heavy circus, here were their election results, compared to votes for that position in December 2011, those called on in the short March 20 Q&A in bold:

Dec '13 Dec '11

Prez: * 78 [85] Pamela Falk, CBS News TV and Radio

1st VP * 74 [79] Kahraman Haliscelik, TRT Turkish Radio & TV

2d VP * 48 71 Masood Haider, Dawn, Pakistan

* 48 [71] Sylviane Zehil, L’Orient Le Jour

3d VP * 55 [62] Erol Avdovic, Webpublicapress

38 Ali Barada, An-Nahar/France 24

Trez * 81 [71] Bouchra Benyoussef, Maghreb Arab Press

Sect * 79 [81] Seana Magee, Kyodo News

Members at Large:

* 57 1. Nabil Abi Saab , Alhurra TV (US BBG)

* 57 2. Talal Al-Haj ,Al-Arabiya News channel

22 3. George Baumgarten , Jewish Newspapers, Nation Media

* 50 4. Sherwin Bryce-Pease, South African Broadcasting (SABC)

* 51 5. Zhenqiu Gu, Xinhua News Agency

* 69 6. Melissa Kent, CBC/Radio Canada

* 56 7. Evelyn Leopold, Huffington Post Contributor

49 8. J. Tuyet Nguyen, German Press Agency DPA

* 67 9. Michelle Nichols, Reuters

41 10. Edwin Nwanchukwu, News Agency of Nigeria

27 11. Cia Pak, Scannews

*54 12. Valeria Robecco, ANSA

* 54 13. Sangwon Yoon , Bloomberg

  Some of the elected are new and their positions on UNCA Executive Committee members trying to get other (investigative) media thrown out of the UN, and the need to preclude this and UNCA leaders' anonymous social media trolling, are not yet known. (Some not elected were among the better / more diverse candidates.)

  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 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.