No one likes a preachy hypocrite, which may explain a certain distrust of the United Nations among the people it claims to support. Although the UN pressures the governments of its Member States to observe the body of conventions and governance standards that many regard as international law (using this term loosely), in fact, the UN itself is under no formal obligation to respect its own guiding principles.

This unique exemption was on full display on June 22, when armed security guards at the United Nations forced US journalist Matthew Russell Lee to leave the premises as he tried to cover a speech delivered by Secretary General Antonio Guterres. Mr. Lee has been accredited to cover the UN for Inner City Press since 2006, and the expulsion was neither announced nor explained. Curiously, no senior official present objected to the manhandling of a reporter, which occurred in full view of many of them. On the contrary, as security expelled Mr. Lee from the building, he encountered Catherine Pollard, the UN’s Under-Secretary General (USG) for General Assembly and Conference Management, who pointedly ignored his plight and simply stayed her course, despite his plea for her intervention.

Along the way, Mr. Lee also asked the guards for their names, which they refused to provide.

This most recent incident is the latest in a long history of harassment directed at a journalist who has been critical of UN management and operations over the years. Mr. Lee’s investigative reporting has broken stories concerning sexual abuses committed by peacekeepers in Africa, the role of UN peacekeepers in bringing cholera to Haiti, and war crimes in Sri Lanka, Burundi and Sudan. Mr. Lee’s reporting has also helped to expose corruption at the Headquarters of the United Nations, including the current bribery scandals surrounding former General Assembly President John Ashe.

In short, as a journalist, Mr. Lee has been doing his job at the UN by keeping the English-speaking public informed about both achievements and misconduct there. It should be noted that, in the course of performing his duties, Mr. Lee has always been observant of UN protocols and respectful in his interactions with UN officials.

Unfortunately, these same officials do not accord him the same courtesy. On February 19, 2016, Mr. Lee was evicted from his UN office with only two hours’ notice, insufficient time to remove eight years of investigative files. After requesting more time, eight UN Security guards ejected him from the building, ripped off his UN Resident Correspondents pass, and refused to allow him to collect his coat or passport. Like USG Pollard, the Under-Secretary for Global Communications, Alison Smale, seems deaf to Mr. Lee’s distress; she has refused for eight months to answer e-mails or respond to a petition to restore his credentials as a resident correspondent.

The Government Accountability Project is deeply concerned about the mistreatment of Matthew Lee for two reasons. First, he has covered UN whistleblower cases accurately and in detail, and we regard the mistreatment of him as retaliatory. Secondly, his exclusion from the UN premises because of capricious, unannounced and unknown decisions of senior managers bodes ill for the treatment of journalists in UN Member States.

It is important to note the privileged ability of UN managers to execute maneuvers of this sort in order to protect themselves from unbiased coverage. Clearly, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights does not apply to them, though it is a keystone of the mission of the organization for which they work. The Declaration was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on December 10, 1948 (General Assembly resolution 217 A), and though the Secretariat invokes it to justify pressuring Member States, apparently those who run the UN ignore it without penalty. Specifically, Article 19 of the Declaration reads:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

When the guardian of this principle freely and publicly violates it, the future looks bleak for the principle of freedom of expression around the world.

The Government Accountability Project therefore urges the Member States of the United Nations to combat the silencing of a journalist by taking action at the offices of the self-appointed guardian of free speech, itself: the United Nations. Matthew Lee should be:

  • Reinstated as a resident correspondent with appropriate access to facilities and events, and
  • Issued a public apology for the improper expulsion that occurred on June 22nd.