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to take actions according to the Guidelines which stipulate that those violate the rules may have their accreditation withdrawn or suspended.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

Pro-UN Posters Allowed But Dissent To Be Torn Down, Banning Free Speech as Trend: Photos

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 18 -- The UN's lack of respect for free speech is not a static fact: it is becoming worse.

  Earlier this year, just after the formation of the Free UN Coalition for Access was announced on fliers that the UN and members of its UN Censorship Alliance or UNCA repeatedly tore down, the UN e-mailed out a compromise.

  Isabelle Broyer of the UN Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit wrote on January 28, 2013, "As a follow-up to last week information about flyers, members of the press have several ways to communicate with their colleagues, if they would like to share information... paste it onto your own office door."

  But now the same Isabelle Broyer is ordering the removal even of a simple Free UN Coalition Access sign from Inner City Press' office door -- while saying that two UNCA signs can remain up.

  Click here to view the Free UN Coalition for Access sign on Inner City Press' office door, photo by FUNCA member Luiz Rampelotto:

Click here to view the UNCA signs, in front of a large space custom-built and given free to the United Nations Correspondents Association for private events they don't even inform non-UNCA members of. 

  Meanwhile, an UNCA executive committee member given a private office next to Inner City Press' shared office has pro-UN propaganda festooned on his door. Photo here. 

  That is not coming down. The UN targets specific messages, and seeks to ban one dissenting group while propping up another.

  This is true not only of signs. Broyer's supervisor Stephane Dujarric, formerly the spokesperson for the UN Development Program's Helen Clark and before that Kofi Annan, has not only tried to tell Inner City Press how to cover Ban Ki-moon.

   This year, he asked that Inner City Press call him "urgently" about a single tweet which mentioned World War Two, the UN's founding event.

  (It was the victors or not losers in World War Two which got Permanent seats and veto power on the UN Security Council, which France converted under Kofi Annan into ownership of the top job in UN Peacekeeping, now held byHerve Ladsous, mentioned in the tweet, the fourth Frenchman in a row to run DPKO.)

  Meanwhile when an UNCA Executive Committee member tweets for example that Syria's Assad is like Hitler, no call from Dujarric. Likewise that he should end like Gaddafi. 

  Dujarric is only endeavoring to micro-manage some correspondents. He likes UNCA and its (Gulf and Western) leadership; he tries to ban the new Free UN Coalition for Access for them, and for others in the UN. We will have more on this. Watch this site.

UN Official Ordering Censorship of FUNCA Sign Led March Raid, Shared Photos Which Leaked to BuzzFeed

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 17 -- That Ban Ki-moon's United Nations has no respect for the privacy guaranteed in the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution was made clear on March 18, 2013, when his Department of Public Information (DPI) conducted a non-consensual raid on the office of Inner City Press, rifled through papers and took photographs including of Inner City Press' desk and bookshelf.

(What DPI did with the photographs it took will be addressed, after three months review and restraint, below in this article.)

  Now DPI in June DPI is making clear it has no respect for free speech or free association -- principles protected by the First Amendment to the US Constitution. 

  DPI is trying to ban even a sign for the new Free UN Coalition for Access. The person ordering the FUNCA sign down is the same one who led the March 18, and shared photos of it.

  In a rule DPI agreed to with its UN Correspondents Association, the UN now says:

"Signs posted on doors are limited to entry restrictions – for example, 'do not disturb' or 'on air.' DPI will provide a name-plate for each accredited media organization."

  But, tellingly, the UN proposes to allow two big signs by its favored UNCA -- now known as the UN Censorship Alliance, which also colludes in restricting smaller media's access to the Security Council and in 2012 devoted most of its meetings to trying to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN.

  DPI on Friday June 14 wrote, "the posting of notices policy does apply to the FUNCA sign... I am afraid you will have to take the sign down." The e-mail came from Broyer but she'd said she would check above her. 

  This presumably was with Stephane Dujarric, a DPI official who not only received but in essence encouraged Big Media requests to kick Inner City Press out, including to a non-UN email address he maintains for such "extra-curricular" activity. (There is a movie title that comes to mind, but Inner City Press has been asked not to use it.)

  When the obvious discrepancy with UNCA's two signs was pointed out to the head of DPI on June 14, he said Okay, I will talk to them on Monday. 

  But on Monday morning as Inner City Press tried to cover the Security Council meeting on Children and Armed Conflict, now without a media table which existed for years before UNCA agreed to rules banning it, DPI's Isabelle Broyer insisted, "We are trying to apply the posting of signs policy to all... UNCA has its sign outside the space that has been assigned to that organization."

  Why the UN gives a big space for private meetings by a group that tries to get other media thrown out of the UN is a question that needs answering. But by 5 pm on June 17, other DPI staff were outside Inner City Press' door asking, "are they allowed to hang anything on their door?"

  And Broyer wrote again: "I would like to ask you again to removed the FUNCA sign on your door. As discussed with you before, we only allow signs containing the name of the company which is assigned to that room. You can have Inner City Press on your door, if you want."

   Oh, thank you. How can the UN so openly favor one group over another, and try to ban even the signs of the newer group, even from a media's office door?

   Broyer, as it happens, was on-site at the March 18, 2013 raid. She took photographs, and later that day emailed them to a number of non-DPI parties, as well as to Dujarric. These are EXACTLY the photographs that were then leaked to BuzzFeed on March 21, right after that publication contacted Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson Martin Nesirky to inquiry about the raid.

  We will have more, much more, on all of this. Watch this site.