UNITED
NATIONS, May
25 — Amid
renewed
protest and
crackdown in
Bahrain, at
the UN in New
York on Friday
Inner City
Press asked
the
Chairperson
of the UN
Committee
Against
Torture
Claudio
Grossman about
torture
expert Juan
Mendez being
banned from
Bahrain. Video
here, from
Minute
11:09.

 
Grossman
called
it
“regrettable;”
his fellow
panelist and
chair of
the Human
Rights
Committee
Nigel Rodley
went further,
saying he
could
not think of a
single good
reason Mendez
could be
barred.

 
Both
were in New
York for the
25th meeting
of human
rights treaty
bodies,
so Inner City
Press asked
them about
complaints
that the
bodies are
too slow in
processing
reports and
individual
complaints.

 
Rodley
agreed, saying
it is painful
to issue a
decision on an
individual’s
communication
three or four
years after it
is filed,
particularly
if
the complaint
was about slow
justice in the
complainant’s
country. Yes,
UN, practice
what you
preach: a slow
decision on
justice being
too slow is
typical of
today’s UN.

 
Another
panelist
mentioned that
the world
spent $18
trillion to
save banks
since 2008,
and that $50
million would
save human
rights (or the
“human rights
system,” he
corrected
himself). Bail
out, any
one?

 
Inner
City Press
asked about
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon’s role
with the
bodies — he
claimed to
have played a
role in the
case of
detention
in North Korea
— and about
Navi Pillay
only being
given a half a
second term as
a form of
discipline or
censorship. Video
here from
Minute 34:34.

 
Grossman
waved
off the latter
question, and
on the first
praised Ban
Ki-moon
for
“receiving”
the treaty
body chairs
last November.
Can
you say,
craven?

Footnotes:
As
Grossman,
Radley and the
other panels
came into the
briefing room,
Pamela Falk of
CBS News
whispered to
their handler,
to be sure to
get
the first
question. But
when she got
it, it was a
softball: what
about getting
more
signatures on
the treaties
(which she
didn’t
name),
especially the
US? Video
here, from
Minute 1:47.

 
Why
did
Falk come and
at the end
pass out her
business card,
demanding
that of the
panelists? To
promote
herself, sure
– but as
president of
the UN
Correspondents’
Association.

 UNCA’s
Executive
Committee has
gone from
trying to get
the Press
thrown out of
the UN in 2012
to
anonymous
social media
to that effect
in 2013, while
acquiescing
to a
reduction in
media
workspace in
front of, and
access to, the
Security
Council.
(The Free
UN Coalition
for Access,
for which
Inner City
Press offered
counter-thanks,
is fighting
the reduction.)

 
Falk
comes to ask
made-up
question, on
which she
files no
stories. She
posted a
photograph of
the press
conference —
with an
inaccurate
caption,
naming people
who were not
on the podium.
She concluded
by
asking of the
treaty bodies
had moved to
send Syria to
the
International
Criminal Court
— not their
role. Video
here from
Minute 30:10.

 
But
when the UN Security
Council met
with Kenya
about their
ICC case,
Falk was
nowhere to be
seen; nor
was Louis
Charbonneau
her First Vice
President or
factotum of
Reuters, which
appears to not
have filed a
story about
the Security
Council
session with
Kenya. This is
their
“journalism.”