At UN, Formal Request Made To End Restrictions on Press, Is Officer in Charge, In Charge?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 5 – The UN, demonstrating hypocrisy on both press freedom and transparency, evicted Inner City Press as it covered UN corruption in the Ng Lap Seng bribery case and restricts it even now, after the evicting official is gone. (A formal request for reversal, below, as been filed). After the UN's head of Communications Cristina Gallach was given a strange farewell toast on March 30, the UN told Inner City Press that the "position will be filled by an Officer-in-Charge... while the process to find a new Under-Secretary-General for Public Information continues."

 On April 3, Inner City Press wrote to this Officer in Charge, who copied the request to several others to be named: 

"Four hundred and five days ago, without any hearing or opportunity to be heard, I was ordered out of the United Nations for having sought to covering a meeting in the UN Press Briefing Room that was nowhere listed as closed to some journalists and not others. Inner City Press, still without any hearing and no appeal since, was then evicted from its shared office S-303 which has sat largely unused since. I have been forced, for more than a year, to only enter through the metal detectors at the Visitors Entrance, and my pass has not worked on the second floor turnstile, precluding me from covering events on the second floor as other correspondents could. There are other restrictions and double standards, hindering reporting, of which DPI has been made aware.

 Yesterday was the last day atop DPI for the official who without speaking to me once signed the February 19, 2016 letter, and for the April 2016 eviction. The Deputy Spokesperson told me yesterday, in a noon briefing where I asked six questions (earlier the week there was a noon briefing where from the entire rest of the accredited press corps there were only three questioners), I was told that you are the Officer in Charge of DPI. In that capacity, this is a formal request that Inner City Press be restored to the office it was ousted from without due process... and that I be restored to Resident Correspondent accreditation immediately... I also incorporate this link to the Special Rapporteurs for Freedom of Expression and Human Rights Defenders letter: and, again, this petition."

 Days later, no ruling, attempted jokes while Inner City Press worked to write up the Syria UN Security Council meeting from a bench in the UN lobby. We'll have more on this.

On March 28, forwarded not sent to Inner City Press, this: "UNCA will host a farewell reception in honor of Under-Secretary-General of DPI, Cristina Gallach, on Thursday, March 30th at 5:30 pm in the UNCA room (3rd floor, UN Secretariat Building, room 310). Food and wine will be served. Please join us for a farewell toast!" Toasting what? Allowing into the UN with no due diligence the Macau-based businessman Ng Lap Seng, as detailed in the UN's own audit at Paragraphs 37-40 and 20b? Evicting the Press without any hearing or appeal? The decline in media access? On March 29, Inner City Press asked among other things, "yesterday your Office replied, regarding the USG of DPI, 'We will announce arrivals and departures as they occur.' Now that your partner has arranged a farewell for this USG for March 30, what is the rationale for your Office refusing to confirm her departure and the status of recruiting a replacement?" The UN spokesman replied, "Regarding Under-Secretary-General Cristina Gallach, her position will be filled by an Officer-in-Charge upon her departure while the process to find a new Under-Secretary-General for Public Information continues." We'll have more on this.

  In early 2016, covering the UN corruption scandals which have resulted in two sets of indictments for bribery involving the UN, Inner City Press was ordered to leave the UN Press Briefing Room by then Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

  Other correspondents were allowed to stay in the briefing room, which Dujarric had "lent" them. But he insisted that Inner City Press leave. Video here.

  Inner City Press asked to see any paperwork that the event was closed; none was provided. Inner City Press stated that if a single UN Security official asked it to leave, it would. Finally one guard came and said Dujarric wanted it to leave. 

  Inner City Press immediately left, uploaded the already live-streamed Periscope video, and continued digging into the corruption that's resulted in the indictment for bribery and money laundering of Ban Ki-moon's brother Ban Ki Sang and nephew Dennis Bahn.

  But three weeks afterward, without a single conversation or opportunity to be heard, Ban's Under Secretary General for Public Information Cristina Gallach ordered Inner City Press to leave the UN, after ten years, on two hours notice. Order here.

   This was enforced, as Inner City Press worked on its laptop at the UN Security Council stakeout, by eight UN Security officers led by Deputy Chief McNulty, who tore Inner City Press accreditation badge off its chest and said, "Now you are a trespasser." Audio here.

  Inner City Press was marched down the escalator and around the UN traffic circle, without even its coat which was up in its longtime office. It was pushed out of the gate and its laptop, in a bag, was thrown on the sidewalk and damaged.

  The next work day when Inner City Press arranged for a fellow journalist to sign it in as a guest so it could cover the Security Council, UN Security official Matthew Sullivan said it was Banned from UN premises worldwide. Audio here.

   After three days covering the UN from the park in front in the sleet, and articles like this one, Inner City Press re-entered with a "non-resident correspondents" pass - to which it is still, more than eleven months later, confined.

  The then-US Mission under Samantha Power and Isobel Coleman, even petitioned by the DC-based Government Accountability Project, did nothing. Indirectly, a offer was made of an upgraded pass if Inner City Press would agree to a gag order, to which it would not and will not agree.

  There has been no UN opportunity for appeal or reinstatement. After having five boxes of Inner City Press' investigative files thrown on the sidewalk in April, Gallach is giving its office to an Egyptian state media Akhbar al Yom which rarely comes in, a correspondent Sanaa Youssef who had yet to ask a single question. 

Her only claim is that she was once, decades ago, a president of the United Nations Correspondents Association, the group to which Duajrric "lent" the UN Press Briefing Room, without notice or written record, on January 29, 2016. 

 Even as the scope of Ban Ki-moon's corruption is being exposed upon his return to South Korea, here, his successor Antonio Guterres has yet to reverse this year of censorship and no due process. On January 6 Dujarric and Gallach led him on a tour of... the UN Correspondents Association, which now wants him again in their clubhouse. (More on this to follow.)

 On January 27 as Inner City Press moved to cover Guterres at the UN's Holocaust event, it was targeted by UN Security and told it could not proceed without a minder, who did not appear for over 15 minutes. 

 All of this must change. This is a scam, and censorship: the UN's Censorship Alliance. We will have more on this.

After UN Evicted ICP, Spox Dujarric Wanted To Control NYT Article Too, Entrenched Corruption

By Matthew Russell Lee, Series, Video, Reply

UNITED NATIONS, March 31 – Weeks after the UN evicted and restricted me,  what would a New York Times article change? Deputy Secretary Jan Eliasson, who'd previously written back if only to say, you have to deal with Cristina [Gallach], didn't answer. I got an automatic, it seemed, confirmation of receipt by the SG's office, and nothing from Mulet.  At the Security Council stakeout there was silence from the insiders, some whispered talk from the outsiders, two of whom I'd helped get their offices in the UN.

Down in the basement, some staff members gave the thumbs up. “For once people hear how it is here,” one of them said, “how Ban is.” Over in the 46th Street library active citizen Dan Purcell said he loved it, he'd like to help more, he'd try to re-synch audio from the eviction video. An Ambassador asked me to sign his copy of the New York Times, la lutta continua. But what would it change?

  It was the UN that wanted changes. Corey called me and said Ban Ki-moon's (and before that, Kofi Annan's) spokesman Stephane Dujarric wanted a correction, that I didn't just get in on day passes but had a non-resident pass until June 22.  I told Corey, fine, but then I want some changes too. When did they ever call the NYPD on me, as the story said? How did I arrive “uninvited” in the UN Press Briefing Room, if in fact the meeting was announced by squawk over the public address system by Dujarric's office? And, I told him, I ran for president of the United Nations Correspondents Association in 2009, on platform of bloggers' and new media rights. After that I was still elected first vice president. The story made it seem I quit right after I ran.

  Whatever, Corey said. The UN is really pushing for its correction.

  So I am for mine, I said.

  I left the UN focus booth and got one of the Media Accreditation staffers or minders to escort me to the stakeout area in front of ECOSOC. The tall Caribbean guard was there and immediately came over. “Here we got again,” he said. “Why do you have to be here? What makes you so special?”

  Read the New York Times, I told him. The spokesman says that if escort I can get where I need--

  I don't read the New York Times, the guard said, I read the UN Times.

  “So you know the UN killed 10,000 people in Haiti then, right?”

  “Why do you have to go there?”

 “You said you read the UN Times. That's what the UN did,” I told him. We went round and round as diplomats walked by, some of them widening their berth. Maybe the article wouldn't help.

  If nothing else, the article made me feel I didn't have to explain anymore, or feel that if I didn't explain my plight to some mid level diplomat I was screwing myself. I was identified as thrown out. Some long-ago acquaintances called to ask if I was OK. My friend David said the story didn't include the diplomats he'd met who liked and read my work. That, it did not. A Lebanese journalist I knew, from London, called it an “establishment hatchet job.” Still, I told myself, at least this stage was over. But what was the next stage?

After UN Evicted ICP, NYT Had Dujarric Saying All's Fine, Ban, Mulet & Eliasson Ignoring

By Matthew Russell Lee, Series, Video, Reply

UNITED NATIONS, March 24 – Weeks after the UN evicted and restricted me, Corey from New York Times called again about his now too-late article. “Looks like it's running tomorrow,” he said. “I just have a few more questions.” What timing I thought. Right after my office was given out. Corey wanted to know about the boxes, why the UN had put them on the street. I tried to explain but he said, too complicated. Call it a dispute. Yes, I told him. Call it a dispute.

  Down in the Vienna Cafe I ran into one of the few journalists at the UN who'd been willing to speak with Corey. I didn't tell him the story might run the next day - I'd previously told my favorite Dominican UN cleaning guy, then had to explain why it didn't. The journalist said he'd seen someone in my office, whom he'd never seen before in his twelve years at the UN. He said Giampaolo Pioli, who'd talked him out of circulating a letter supporting me or at least my right to due process, was now saying the United Nations Correspondents Association would have a meeting about access for “Green P” non-resident correspondents.
  
  “Bullshit,” I told him. They never did it, anyway.

  After he left I had sample indigenous food in front of Conference Room 4 - UN Security tried to move the indigenous out, I started filming - and staked out the DR Congo sanctions committee meeting in Room 7, even as two of the supposed sanctions experts glared at me.

  At midnight the New York Times story went up. It said I was unstable, that they'd had to call the cops on me. But it quoted me about the UN being like a totalitarian country, alleged or alluded to corruption, said they were “frustrated” with my questions. StephaneDujarric was quoted that with a helper - that is, a minder - from MALU I could “get where [I] need to go.”  That line made me laugh, after being harassed by guards even when accompanied by a MALU minder.

 Anyway, it was what it was, as Dujarric also said. I e-mailed it and another plea to Deputy Eliasson, chief of staff Mulet, and Ban's e-mail address. I wrote to the Egyptian media, Akhbar Elyom, urging them to find another office, I'd help them, this one had a fight about it. Both emails bounced back; the one to the Jersey-based correspondent Sanaa Youssef, a former president of the UN Correspondents Association, went through. But would it stop them? Would it change their minds?

After UN Evicted ICP, Moved in Egyptian State Media CPJ Had Criticized, But Not Now, Scam

By Matthew Russell Lee, Series, Video, Reply

UNITED NATIONS, March 23 – After the UN evicted and restricted me, up on the second floor, even after 10 am, the glass door to the Security Council was locked. I started filming Periscope when the GA President's spokesman approached. Not me but two women ten feet in front of me I hadn't even noticed.“He's recording you, you know,” he told them loudly.

   “I'm filming my exclusion from the Security Council,” I told him. “But you're recording them.” “You're doing a great job,” I told him. “A great job of censorship.”

  The UN guard came over. “Is there a problem?” he asked. He was speaking to Dan, not me. “Would you like to file a complaint again him?” he asked Dan.

   “Go ahead and do it,” I said loudly, still filming. Dan walked away. Another complaint in my file, I figured. It was only getting worse.

  Still to the noon briefing I asked about GG-UNSDG, I asked why Ban had been present at the vanity press book launch of John Ashe's wife. Dujarric didn't like that one. An hour later Luiz told me: they were moving someone into the office, into my desk. How? “Egyptians,” Luiz said. “I haven't met them yet.”

  I went straight to Media Accreditation. So is it true? I asked. Is it true my office being given out? It's not YOUR office, they said.  To who? I asked. Then, “To whom?”

  “Akhbar El Yom,” they said. “I don't think you know them.” “So how can they get an office?” I went upstairs to write it, and in the Googling found that Akhbar Elyom is Egytpian state media, which fingers other journalists in Cairo for arrest by Sisi's forces. It turned out the Committee to Protect Journalists, whose Rob Mahoney then Joel Simon had refused to do anything about my case, had criticized Akhbar Elyom.  What a circus of hypocrisy: that's how I wrote it. But would it help? 

After UN Evicted ICP, Frozen Out on Press Freedom Day, Gallach's South South News Pushed Back

By Matthew Russell Lee, Series, Video, Reply

UNITED NATIONS, March 22 – After the UN evicted and restricted me it was soon "UN World Press Freedom Day." I went to Conference Room 4 to ask a question. But justafter I went in, the UN's evicter Cristina Gallach said she had to leave. Her deputy who'd applied for Gallach's job but been passed over, took almost no questions, tweeted back at me that in any event I'd left. Yeah: to go up to the noon briefing, the only place I could ask anything anymore. So I asked, how can you do this? Kofi Annan-era spokesman Stephane Dujarric called it a personal question and left the podium. This is what it had come to.

  As I teed off on the UN for corruption, I was being teed off on by the corrupt: they did the work for the UN. Sure, the United Nations Correspondents Association or UNCA had done this. But now a reconstituted South South News did it too, calling out in a press release first unnamed “independent journalists,” then when that didn't work, Inner City Press by name.

  And Reuters covered it. Not the UN bureau, but Reuters' courthouse guy. They all worked as a team, as an industry, a monopoly. South South News said it was unfair and unprofessional to even mention that their founder and former president Francis Lorenzo had pleaded guilty to bribery, and vice president Vivian Wang too. They were a new team, they said - no names were given - yet this blogger kept attacking. Of course, the UN continued to give South South News as office, while evicting Inner City Press into the street. But South South News, it seemed, wanted Inner City Press shut up completely. How could they accomplish it?

  Alongside my other projects including my exclusion log, now for no one, I kept my eyes out for the South South crew. One afternoon in the basement near the Vienna Cafe I saw a former South South big wig, Carlos Garcia of El Salvador, talking with a white and white-haired man with three what looked to be interns. I staked them out, taking a few photos, then following the white haired man and his encourage down what's called The Neck and into the General Assembly basement.

  The white haired man sat on one bench talking on his cell phone; the entourage, now including a beefy guy I dubbed The Russian, sat on another, waiting. I set up on a table in the Visitors' Cafe. I filmed some but didn't live-stream, not wanting to blow my cover. Who were these guys? It was a race against time.

 Online I found another constellation, including Carlos Garcia and some others: the Global Governance for the UN SDGs. I asked about GGUNSDG, whose webmaster had been Ng Lap Seng's, at the noon briefing; South South News put out another press release trashing me. Who were these meant for? To help the UN further target me? The UN Corruption Alliance? 

UNcensored 30: UN Minders Told Press Not To Approach Diplomats With Questions, Covering Up Corruption

By Matthew Russell Lee, Series, Video, Reply

UNITED NATIONS, March 21 – After the UN evicted and restricted me I tried, at least, to be persistent. Some noticed it - my friend who'd come to sign Corey of the New York Times in, though said he could never be quoted, took me aside and said, “I thought you'd run out of steam, or go crazy - but you're beating them at their own game.” But was I? A guy from West Africa who worked for the UN told me, “You're sure to win, because you have more energy than they do.” But where had it gotten me?

   This day it got me to the UN food bazaar facing the river, sponsored by Ambassadors' wives and presided over by the First Wife herself, Mrs. Ban Ki-moon, who'd taken photoswith the Ng Lap Seng bribery team. I stood and Periscoped the speeches, then visited the booths. A guy from Eastern Europe tried to con people into buying four dollar cookies. I got from the China booth two steamed buns,jowdzuh, for a dollar, and joked with China's new Ambassador about it. It brought back memories.

  I saw the guards eyeing me, as if now they thought I'd make a run at Ban Ki-moon. Had I ever done anything, other than write articles? But someone had put the word out. I was targeted, and something was sure to happen. I chewed my steamed bun and chanted softly: Ban Ki Moon. Is corrupt. Ban Ki-moon. He is corrupt. It had become my mantra.

Up at the stakeout, on the second floor, things hit a new low. I got a Media Accreditation minder to take me to in front of the ECOSOC chamber, a meeting about Security Council reform. The same Caribbean guard came over, asked why I was there with my pass, why I was so special. I told him I had a minder but he wouldn't let up.  Finally they told me, you shouldn't approach or speak to diplomats. What? “They have to come to one,” it was added, as if that made it better. UNCA scribes floated by, mostly just on their way for coffee or something stronger, who knew, some running after Western ambassadors like the UK's Rycroft, New Zealand's von Bohemen. This was a total double standard.

  All I could do was write it, tweet the headline, wait for disbelief. Minders in the UN? Look but do not touch? 

UNcensored 29: Even Exposed by Ng Lap Seng Bribery, UN Reformed Nothing, Used Security Against Press

By Matthew Russell Lee, Series, Video, Reply

UNITED NATIONS, March 20 – Despite the UN being exposed for its corruption with Ng Lap Seng, it hadn't cleaned anything up. I'd seen an invite to an auction to be held in the UN's Delegates Dining Room, the sponsors of which just happened to be the biggest contractors at the UN, from construction to catering. I emailed an RSVP and was immediately asked, Why do you want to come?

  So I tried to stake it out. First there was another disarmament event with Michael Douglas. It was on the third floor but when I tried to go through the doors, one of Ban Ki-moon's guards blocked me. “This is open only for the Secretary General,” the guard told me. I pulled back - then saw another wire service journalists come and and be shepherded right through the door. I went the long way around and started filming, starting with the guard. He looked uncomfortable, glared, called another guard over and pointed at me.

It struck me: in standing up for my rights, I was getting into more and more problems with the guards. Maybe this was one of their plans, to get me bound up in this. These guards could write up reports and their would be a full file against me when I re-applied for accreditation. Back in 2012 I'd asked for the right for all journalists to see the files against them, but been denied. The UN was and is a joke.

  Ban left directly from the disarmament event for the other event, heading first for a reception in what's called the Qatari Lounge on the first floor facing the river. I stood in the hall outside taking notes. An officious woman with a clipboard kept looking at me, then put her clipboard down. It said, “Qatari event.” So Qatar was involved. I took out my phone - I didn't live-stream, seeing where that had gotten me, but saved the video for possible later use. Who were these tuxedo-ed people traipsing around the UN? This was Ban's UN. And I was a fly on the wall, now pushed out into the open, about to be swatted.

After UN Evicted ICP, UN Security Blocked It From Any Corruption Question to Ban Ki-moon

By Matthew Russell Lee, Series, Video, Reply

UNITED NATIONS, March 17 – After I learned of Ban Ki-moon's role in my eviction, the next morning I showed up ready to cover a meeting in ECOSOC where Ban would speak. But first the UN Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit said they couldn't spare anyone to swipe me through the turnstile; then when they did it was hardly better. A tall Caribbean guard came over. “What are you doing here with that pass?” he demanded.

 I gestured at my minder, barely five feet away.  “Why are you so special?” the guard demanded. He wouldn't get out of my face and soon I saw why: Ban Ki-moon and his entourage were coming out of ECOSOC. The guard stood between me and Ban. They didn't want any more question, anymore “That was not my decision.” Clearly it was.

  Thanks a lot, I told the guard, hoping my sarcasm was plain.

  “You watch yourself,” he replied. The minder stood by, then shrugged. Where was this headed? Did they just intend to throw me out on June 22 when this four month pass ran out? Or before then?

   I found myself putting more and more hope in the New York Times - and hating myself for doing it. They are not the measure of anything, I told myself. They let themselves be lobbied by other big media. But still I though it would help. I told myself I would call Corey the next day - then saw he had emailed me two days before. More questions, more run-around. I answered. I did not like to be dependent.

After UN Evicted ICP, Spokesman Dujarric Dropped the F-Bomb, Truth Over Chinese Duck

By Matthew Russell Lee, Series, Video, Reply

UNITED NATIONS, March 16 – The day after learning that Ban Ki-moon had OK-ed theUN's Cristina Gallach's eviction of Inner City Press, the next morning I wrote up some of the story, about the diplomatic immunity game, and the staff disgust with Gallach. The stories both showed up in Google News just before the noon briefing and then I sent in to ask about them.  Long time spokesman Stephane Dujarric seemed angrier than usual, telling me I should just ask the US Mission about the legal status people have, and refusing to answer about Gallach's number two deputy fleeing to Brussels. On this last one, he walked away from the podium and said, “Matthew that's a f*cking stupid question.”

   For the record, I said loudly. I was glad I'd turn my Periscope on. When the UNTV video went up, the sound cut off just before Dujarric dropped the F bomb, his second one on me. I synced it with the Periscope and put it online. He was going to love this one.

  It was the end of April and I headed down First Avenue to the Chinese mission for their End of Security Council presidency reception. They had duck and shrimp; several people looked surprised to see me. Once in this same large room I'd had a one on one interview with then-Ambassador Li Baodong, just before going on a Security Council trip to Sudan. There'd be no more of that.

A woman in the know told me “they” had used Ban Ki-moon in his last year to do this to me.

  Who do you mean by 'they,' I asked him.

   The United Nations Correspondents Association, she said. You know, the other journalists.  The UN Correspondents Association? Could it really be that petty and that low? Another journalist, Chinese, called me over to ask, Why are you not in UNCA?

I explained to him as best as I could, that I'd been asked to take a truthful article off line, that big media used UNCA as a way to beat down smaller competitors, then go after then if they complained.

 Oh, he said. Now I get it.

I was alone, apart from the pack. There was nothing to do but embrace it and see where it would lead.

After UN Evicted ICP, Sources Says Ban OK-ed It, Of Gallach, W Sahara & Cameroon

By Matthew Russell Lee, Series, Video, Reply

UNITED NATIONS, March 15 –  After the UN's eviction of Inner City Press, I couldn't go to the Delegates Lounge anymore with my reduced access pass. But walking past the World Bar in the Trump International Tower, a voice I recognized called my name. It was, how to phrase it, a well-placed UN staffer. Walk with me, he said. I did.

  Ban knew all about it, he began. There was a Monday morning meeting, of all the USGs -- Under Secretaries General - and Gallach brought it up, said you have to be punished. He paused. “A few spoke in favor of you, I won't tell you who because then you'll go after the others. But the point is, Ban listened but didn't say anything. He didn't stop it. It was an implicit OK from him.”

  We had crossed Third Avenue and just kept walking. Hadn't Ban told me, “That is not my decision”?

He ran through other things I didn't know: that John Ashe's former chief of staff had kept her diplomatic status even while the UN was paying her, that Gallach's immediate underlying, formerly of Reuters, had hated Gallach so much she'd taken a demotion from D2 to a D1 in Brussels just to get away from her.

 The guy went bigger picture, as we walked west. “Maybe you're going to have to wait it out for the next SG,” he said. That would be eight more months, seven of them after my pass ran out. Would I stop covering the UN, or really covering it, for half a year? On what basis could or would I return?

  They hate you, he told me. They really hate you. They've always hated you, on issues from Sri Lanka to Western Sahara to Burundi [and now Cameroon]. But when you started asking about Ashe and Ng Lap Seng, tying it to Ban Ki-moon, after you'd already asked about Ban's son in law Sid Chatterjee being promoted and that nephew Dennis Bahn, that was it. He wants to run for President of South Korea, everybody knows it. So this is inconvenient. You're inconvenient. He got you out, and they are going to keep pressing.

  And I'll push back, I said.

  Good luck, the guy said. He'd gotten to his subway stop. That's all I can tell you, he said. And he was gone.

  And on my way back east I chanted it again: Ban Ki Moon.. is corrupt. Ban Ki-moon. Is so corrupt.

Morocco Trolls Mis-Read Inner City Press' #UNcensored, Narrative of UN Censorship

By Matthew Russell Lee, Series, Video I, II

UNITED NATIONS, March 14 – The state of Morocco's online media is exemplified by yesterday's mis-reading of Inner City Press' narrative of eviction from and censorship at the UN, #UNcensored, and breathless accusation of spying, here. This is the same gang which tries to get journalists thrown out, calling anyone who disagrees an agent. The narrative recounted, with the clarification now added in brackets, "went back in through the metal detectors to the Security Council's meetings on Western Sahara. Here, at least online, I was accused of being an Algerian agent, [by pro-Morocco trolls, including strangely in Texas,] even though I didn't deal with anyone at the Algerian mission. I criticized Polisario too, how they were losing embassies. Still, they were the underdog, and more fun or more interesting to side with. This had been my criteria in my years at the UN, and now it had come to this." This was called an admission. UNreal.

#UNcensored's 25th installment, run yesterday, states: "After the UN's eviction of Inner City Press, the days went on, always on the move, asked by UN guards “What are you doing here,” told at the noon briefing I was imagining things, how could I  say I was ousted if I was physically present in the briefing room now? Told online that it was all my fault, for secret filming, standing silent at the Security Council stakeout, tweeting with the wider world, not even moving to get the spoon-fed spin from P3 spokespeople, just ambushing their ambassadors with Periscope and putting in on YouTube...

Burundians had been emailing me, Manisha Lievin from Louisiana, John from DC, that they would rally on 47th Street. I went out and there were maybe two dozen of them, with flags, diffuse. I Periscoped and interviewed; I followed a guy from South South News, described by Preet Bharara as Ng Lap Seng's bribery conduit, through the park and did a voiceover about UN corruption.

Finally their march began, slowing, down First Avenue. I followed and filmed. Some people recognized me and said, I follow you, or, I love your questions. They took selfies with me - this happened with Sri Lankan Tamils, too, and I got accused of being a terrorist, that was by board members of the United Nations Correspondents Association. That was the UN Correspondents Association for you - self righteous scribes.

  It was getting cold, at the Burundians' rally in the 43rd Street Park I'd hung out in for three days. My batteries were going dead. I bid adieu - most of them spoke French - and went back in through the metal detectors to the Security Council's meetings on Western Sahara. Here, at least online, I was accused of being an Algerian agent, by pro-Morocco trolls, including strangely in Texas, even though I didn't deal with anyone at the Algerian mission. I criticized Polisario too, how they were losing embassies. Still, they were the underdog, and more fun or more interesting to side with. This had been my criteria in my years at the UN, and now it had come to this.

  I woke up each morning wondering if this would be the day that the New York Times would finally run its story. I Googled the reporter's name, Corey Kilgannon - he went a week with no stories, then something about a bartender in Woodside, Queens. I'd chosen the wrong guy, I'd begun to think. He'd gotten lobbied. Or those above him. I looked to see how to write to the paper's Ombudsperson, their Public Editor, but she'd recently left. It was all corrupt, I decided, uploading yet another story. I would flail around for the four months then get thrown out forever.

After UN Evicted ICP, Sources Says Ban OK-ed It, Of Gallach, W Sahara & Cameroon

By Matthew Russell Lee, Series, Video, Reply

UNITED NATIONS, March 15 –  After the UN's eviction of Inner City Press, I couldn't go to the Delegates Lounge anymore with my reduced access pass. But walking past the World Bar in the Trump International Tower, a voice I recognized called my name. It was, how to phrase it, a well-placed UN staffer. Walk with me, he said. I did.

  Ban knew all about it, he began. There was a Monday morning meeting, of all the USGs -- Under Secretaries General - and Gallach brought it up, said you have to be punished. He paused. “A few spoke in favor of you, I won't tell you who because then you'll go after the others. But the point is, Ban listened but didn't say anything. He didn't stop it. It was an implicit OK from him.”

  We had crossed Third Avenue and just kept walking. Hadn't Ban told me, “That is not my decision”?

He ran through other things I didn't know: that John Ashe's former chief of staff had kept her diplomatic status even while the UN was paying her, that Gallach's immediate underlying, formerly of Reuters, had hated Gallach so much she'd taken a demotion from D2 to a D1 in Brussels just to get away from her.

 The guy went bigger picture, as we walked west. “Maybe you're going to have to wait it out for the next SG,” he said. That would be eight more months, seven of them after my pass ran out. Would I stop covering the UN, or really covering it, for half a year? On what basis could or would I return?

  They hate you, he told me. They really hate you. They've always hated you, on issues from Sri Lanka to Western Sahara to Burundi [and now Cameroon]. But when you started asking about Ashe and Ng Lap Seng, tying it to Ban Ki-moon, after you'd already asked about Ban's son in law Sid Chatterjee being promoted and that nephew Dennis Bahn, that was it. He wants to run for President of South Korea, everybody knows it. So this is inconvenient. You're inconvenient. He got you out, and they are going to keep pressing.

  And I'll push back, I said.

  Good luck, the guy said. He'd gotten to his subway stop. That's all I can tell you, he said. And he was gone.

  And on my way back east I chanted it again: Ban Ki Moon.. is corrupt. Ban Ki-moon. Is so corrupt.