Update: Past 4 pm on Friday, August 30, 2019 the UN issued a denial of accreditation to Inner City Press to access the impending UN General Assembly High Level Week, with no reasoning other than that accreditation had previously been revoked:

  "From: malu <malu@un.org>
Date: Fri, Aug 30, 2019 at 4:23 PM
Subject: U.N. eAccreditation request for Matthew Lee has been declined
To: Inner City Press

Greetings Matthew Lee from Inner City Press,  Your media accreditation request, with reference no: M5413398, has been declined for the following reason: Media accreditation was withdrawn on 17 August 2018."   

  This is Kafka-esque, a new low even for Guterres. Throughout August 2019 Inner City Press wrote four times to Guterres' new chief of Global Communications Melissa Fleming. She refused to answer a single one of the messages. Instead, we got this from Guterres' head of Security Gilles Michaud:

"From: Gilles Michaud <gilles.michaud@un.org>
Date: Wed, Aug 28, 2019 at 4:49 PM
Subject: RE: DSS treatment of Mr. Matthew Lee
To: Inner City Press
Cc: Hua Jiang <jiang1@un.org>, Jay Pozenel <pozenel@un.org>  [also fleming@unhcr.org]  

Thank you for your message. I have taken the liberty of including counterparts from the Department of Global Communications and Office of Legal Affairs in my response.     

On 10 July 2018 UNDSS escorted Mr. Matthew Lee from the UNHQ complex after he attempted to gain unauthorized access to a locked area and subsequently refused to comply with repeated requests from UN Security to leave the premises, in breach of UN Media Guidelines and the UN Administrative Instruction on the authority of UN Security Officers in place at that time.     Following that incident – and on the basis of a review of a number of previous breaches of the Guidelines and Administrative Issuance – DPI/DGC considered Mr. Lee’s conduct to be inconsistent with the Guidelines for accredited UN correspondents and his accreditation was subsequently withdrawn.      This decision stands and the DSS role is now limited to ensuring that unaccredited individuals do not enter the premises.     

I hope this clarifies.     Gilles Michaud  USG Safety and Security  United Nations        Gilles Michaud  USG Safety and Security  United Nations  Tel: 1-917-367-4652"

   Inner City Press sent a reply to Michaud and others including  SGCentral <sgcentral@un.org>, Amina Mohammed <amina.mohammed@un.org>, aminaj.mohammed@un.org, Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti <marialuiza.viotti@un.org>, David Kaye <dkaye@law.uci.edu> and others: 

"Dear Mr. Michaud -    Thank you for you response, which follows the message I sent you this morning intending to ensure that I am able to enter and cover the upcoming UNGA High Level week like hundreds or thousands of other correspondents.      This should take place, and here with all due respect is why:     While you say "I hope this clarifies," frankly what it clarifies is the lawless cover-up of UN censorship which has occurred for the past 421 days.     Essentially you state, and apparently believe, that DSS has only been enforcing USG Smale's decision to remove my 10 year media accreditation without a single hearing or right to appeal.    

Be aware that DPI, now DGC, has for its part attempted to tell me that it is DSS's decision.     But you should most certainly be aware that in fact DSS officials, including  not limited to Matthew Sullivan and "Tiny," has said on camera that I am on DSS' "barred" list, and have blocked me from entering the UN with tickets in my name to event I was invited to, not as a journalist. I will be happy to provide with the photos of the tickets, including to a human rights event and also to a film to which I was invited by UNODC.      So contrary to your clarification, DSS has not been ensuring that a person - me - not accredited by DPI/DGC as a journalist not enter the UN as a journalist, but that a person be entirely barred from any entry of the UN, even as a tourist...  You say that on July 10, 2018 I "attempted to gain access to a locked area." This is false. First, it was July 3, 2018.     

Second, the "locked area" was the Vienna Cafe outside Conference Room Five where the Fifth (Budget) Committee was meeting. I have covered such meetings for a decade without incident; when Lt Dobbins and his colleague grabbed me, I has just conducted an interview with Cameroon PR Tommo Monthe.      They laid hands on my before I had any opportunity to leave - grabbing my laptop where I was typing up my interview. The Vienna Cafe area was not locked, and MALU guidelines say even non resident correspondents can stay until meeting are over, and thirty minutes after. So this is false.    

In my email to you this morning I offered to answer any questions you had, since I was never given any opportunity to be heard after in June and July 2018 DSS was directed to throw me out of the UN even when I was authorized to be there - a speech by the SG in the GA lobby at 7 pm in June, the Budget Committee meeting in July.   

 I am still willing to show you the documentation of any and all of this. But if DSS has no block on me, and DPI now DGC never gave me a hearing and claims to respect freedom of the press, my August 24 application for accreditation like 100s of other correspondent who don't even write much about the UN should be granted immediately, now four days after I applied.  Given the timing, I ask for confirmation of my ability to enter, forthwith. Thank you for your time,  Matthew Russell Lee, Esq., Inner City Press Past (and future?) Office at UN: Room S-303, UN HQ, NY NY 10017."

  Michaud has not responded; none of Inner City Press' written questions to Guterres and his spokespeople Stephane Dujarric and others has been answered.

  Inner City Press has a right not only to cover, but to enter, the UN General Assembly high level week, like hundreds of state media who barely report on the UN. Any help appreciated, the sooner the better.