July 17, 2018

Alison Smale, Under Secretary General for Global Communications

United Nations
New York, New York
10017

Dear Ms. Smale:

The Government Accountability Project (GAP) is concerned about the United Nations’ actions related to
Matthew Russell Lee, a journalist and blogger for Inner City Press. As you are aware, Inner City Press has
been accredited to cover the UN by the predecessor department to your office, the Department of
Public Information, since 2006. For twelve years, Mr. Lee has covered UN operations diligently,
informing the English-speaking public via internet about budget decisions, General Assembly
resolutions, audit reports, and research findings, among other things. Mr. Lee has also covered
important stories that affect the public interest in a global sense. Among his articles are stories about
human rights abuse, peacekeeping, criminal misconduct, and the treatment of children in conflict zones.

GAP was therefore baffled to learn that the United Nations Secretariat has now banned Mr. Lee from its
New York premises. We have been unable to find any reference to regulations allegedly violated by Mr.
Lee. On the contrary, we see only evidence of unprovoked harassment. For example, in 2016, the
Secretariat evicted Mr. Lee from his resident correspondent’s office with insufficient time to prepare for
the move. At the time, he was trying to cover an event in the UN Press Briefing Room, convened by a
group that had accepted funds from Ng Lap Seng, who was subsequently convicted of bribery and
sentenced to a four-year prison term by a US court. Twice in the past thirty days, Mr. Lee has been
expelled from the UN’s New York Headquarters as he tried to cover newsworthy events there.

The UN Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit Guidelines for ‘Non-Resident Correspondents’ state, at
Paragraph 2a, that:

Non-Resident Correspondents can access UNHQ through the Visitors’ Entrance at 46th Street and
1st Avenue between 0800-1900 hours from Monday through Friday. Non-resident
Correspondents only have access to UNHQ on weekends or after hours accompanied by a
resident correspondent or when a meeting is advised as taking place. Entry will be allowed two
hours prior to the start of the meeting. At the conclusion of the meeting, the non-Resident
correspondent must exit the premises within an hour.

On June 22, Mr. Lee was covering an event, in the UN Media Alert, which featured a speech by the
Secretary General, when he was forced to leave the UN, without his laptop, in violation of the
Guidelines.

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Even after Mr. Lee informed you, the Secretary General and others in a June 25 e-mail of the ouster and
what he alleges was the animus behind it, he was ousted again, more violently, on July 3 while covering
a UN Budget Committee meeting of the type he has covered for over 10 years, including the last two as
a non-resident correspondent. The existence of the meeting was advised to him by the Spokesperson of
the UN General Assembly. He was, in short, improperly forced to leave, and violently so.

Mr. Lee informs GAP that his previous messages to you, through which he sought an explanation for the
United Nations’ withdrawal of his resident (and later non-resident) correspondent’s credentials, have
gone unacknowledged and unanswered. We are therefore requesting from your office the following
information in writing:
• The regulation Mr. Lee violated that precipitated his expulsion on June 22, 2018 and again on
July 3;
• His action that warranted expulsion under the rule;
• The name of the decision maker who approved the order to expel him.

Moreover, GAP understands that Mr. Lee is temporarily banned from access to the United Nations New
York Headquarters building, pending the completion of a review. Given this, GAP also requests the
following information:
• The authority under which the review has been undertaken;
• The name(s) of the reviewer(s);
• The process anticipated for conducting the review (i.e. phases, responsible authorities and
timeline).

If there is no regulation violated, GAP requests that Mr. Lee be restored to resident correspondent
accreditation, and his (now) unused office S-303 be reassigned to him. Only that will prevent further
targeting by UN Security with animus, who have not been informed of the rules by the Media
Accreditation and Liaison Unit.

As the Under Secretary of Global Communications, GAP realizes that you are sensitive to the need for
due process when taking action against a journalist. Frequently, regimes that silence journalists and
revoke freedoms of expression ultimately come to abuse other human rights and/or tolerate corruption.
The link between human rights abuse and a lack of freedom of expression is recognized in the preamble
to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Similarly, Article 19 of the Declaration is explicit in its
directive to protect freedom of expression and access to information. The possibility that the United
Nations may avoid accountability by restricting access to its premises is disconcerting, and GAP would
very much appreciate responses to the questions posed above.

Very truly yours,

Beatrice Edwards
Senior International Policy Analyst

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Cc: US Senator Patrick Leahy
US Representative Chris Smith
US Representative James McGovern
David Banisar, Article 19
Matthew Russell Lee, Inner City Press