What happens when the freedom of the press is no longer free? Taiwanese journalists sent to Geneva to cover the annual World Health Assembly have found out the hard way.
Read part one of this diary here.
As could have been predicted, Taiwan’s bid to join the World Health Organization has once again foundered on the shoals of bad politics, and with it the WHO’s reputation as an impartial defender of public health. This being World Press Freedom Day, I thought it would be appropriate to examine a lesser-known but no less disturbing side-issue of Taiwan’s bid, namely the United Nation’s continued denial of press accreditation to Taiwanese Journalists at the annual World Health Assembly (WHA) meeting in Geneva.
The practice of denying Taiwan’s professional journalists press accreditation to the World Health Assembly began in 2004, when the United Nation’s Geneva Office took over responsibility for handling the media for the event. It is ironic that before 2004 the WHO saw absolutely no problem in handing out press passes to Taiwan’s professional journalists to cover the WHA meeting while it continued to deny their country of origin the right to similarly observe that event.
But in May 2004 the UN’s Geneva office suddenly decreed that only journalists who could produce a passport from a country recognized by the UN and another form of photo ID would receive accreditation, a decision that effectively barred the majority of Taiwanese journalists because the UN doesn’t recognize Taiwan nor the rights of its 23 million citizens. That year only two Taiwanese journalists were given press credentials, and this was only because they happened to possess American and British passports. When asked about the sudden reversal in policy, chief of the Geneva office’s press and external relations section said that the UN doesn’t recognize Taiwan as a state and that the reporters’ Taiwan passports were merely “local passports”.
The UN’s decision to deny Taiwanese journalists accreditation raises two troubling questions. The first deals with Taiwan’s ability and right to receive timely information pertaining to the health of its citizens. Once again we can turn to the WHO’s own charter to see that keeping Taiwan out of the information loop is against the spirit, if not the letter of the WHO’s stated commitment to health. The constitution’s preface states that “[i]nformed opinion and active cooperation on the part of the public are of the utmost importance in the improvement of the health of the people.” As I discussed in my last entry, the Taiwan government’s ability to communicate and share data with the WHO continues to be degraded by the month. As bad as this is, the argument could be made that these communications could also be made via other channels like the media. The Geneva office’s decision to deny Taiwan’s reporters access to the WHA and its policy-planning sessions closes that remaining channel, leaving Taiwan dependent on second- or third-hand information about these meetings and unable to form the very “informed opinions” on public health that the WHO hopes to provide the world’s people.
The second question at hand concerns the larger issue of freedom of the press. The International Federation of Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, and other NGOs have repeatedly expressed concern to the UN Secretariat over this issue on behalf of the Taiwanese government. This is not the only time the UN has faced criticism for overstepping its bounds when it comes to journalists. The Inner City Press, a New York-based public interest organization, has highlighted past and continued instances where the United Nations has arbitrarily decided who is granted access as a journalist and who isn’t. The Inner City Press’s March 31 article on the issue also notes with more than a little irony that:
“[t]he UN as of yet has not freedom of information policy -- that is, the press and public have no right to information, nor any formal process to request it. Kofi Annan's [Under-Secretary-General] for Management, Christopher Burnham, had promised a freedom of information rule that would be, he said, the "gold standard." Before he left in late 2006 to work at Deutsche Bank, no FOIA rule was adopted. Earlier this week, Inner City Press asked current USG for Management Alicia Barcena about any progress on enacting a FOIA policy. Ms. Barcena indicated that she intends to confer with UNCA [United Nations Correspondents Association], to "ask you all how the policy would work best."
The article also touches on the “tortured phrasing” inserted into the UN’s press accreditation guidelines seemingly designed to keep Taiwanese journalists out while wondering why the same standards aren’t applied to journalists from Abkhazia, South Ossentia and Somaliland, all quote-unquote “breakaway republics”. The unstated answer, of course, lays in the UN’s unwillingness to challenge the People’s Republic of China on its ever-expanding definition of “One China”, which Beijing uses as a club to quell any foreign dissent over its single-minded drive to extinguish Taiwan’s international presence. The logic is zero-sum: if Taiwan’s journalists were allowed in, it might send a signal to the world that that they are citizens of an independent nation, and for the PRC, that is a bridge too far.
Taiwan’s continued inability to join the WHO, coupled with the UN’s distasteful practice of denying Taiwanese journalists accreditation at the WHA illustrate how far both the WHO and UN have strayed in practice from their stated belief in the universality of human rights. Those wishing to protest the UN Office in Geneva’s decision to deny Taiwanese journalists accreditation can write to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at:
His Excellency Mr. Ban Ki-moon
Secretary-General of the United Nations
First Avenue at 46th Street
New York, NY 10017
Those wishing to voice their support for Taiwan’s WHO bid can write WHO Director-General Margaret Chan at:
Dr. Margaret Chan
Director-General of the World Health Organization
20 Avenue Appia
1211 Geneva 27
Switzerland