UNESCO Director-General's report on the safety of journalists not approved

The report of UNESCO Director General Audre Azoulay on the safety of journalists and the fight against impunity, which did not mention the dead Russians, was not approved by the participants of the session of the Intergovernmental Council of the International Program for the Development of Communication (IPDC). This was stated by Rinat Alyautdinov, Russia's permanent representative to UNESCO, on November 22.

"The discussion of the report ended with the fact that it was not approved. There was no consensus among the member countries, and in general the discussion revealed a very serious layer of problems," he said after the meeting.

Alyautdinov added that the discussion of the document will continue at one of the next sessions of the IPDC Intergovernmental Council. According to Alyautdinov, UNESCO uses double standards in responding to harassment of journalists, and this is clearly expressed with regard to Russians.

"Director-General Azoulay is not fulfilling her mandate that she should condemn the killings of journalists without distinction. <...> Russia and several other countries, Lebanon, the Philippines, Indonesia, Colombia, Palestine, have taken notice of this. <...> Kazakhstan, Cuba, Qatar, Egypt, Egypt, Venezuela and Madagascar demanded that the report be revised to take into account official information. China noted the importance of taking this information into account in the report in order to avoid misinformation," the post said.

Earlier in the day, the UN specialized agency for education, science and culture, which includes the sites in the World Heritage List (UNESCO), denied accreditation to the IPDC meeting to Russian journalists.

Before that, on November 19, the Russian Foreign Ministry expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that UNESCO did not react to Kiev's crimes against Russian journalists. As the ministry noted, "UNESCO Director General O. Azoulay again chose not to notice the crimes committed by Kiev against Russian journalists. Azoulay again chose not to notice these atrocities. According to the Foreign Ministry, the victims of targeted attacks by the AFU this year were military correspondents S.N. Eremin, V.A. Kozhin and N.N. Tsitsagi, while A.S. Ivliev and E.E. Poddubny were seriously wounded.

On November 13, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that UNESCO ignores the Kiev regime's crimes against Russian journalists. According to the diplomat, the draft report, including on the activities of journalists on the territory of Ukraine, has been submitted by the organization's director-general Audrey Azoulay and will be submitted for consideration by the intergovernmental council of the international programme for the development of communication in Paris. However, the issue of the real situation with the safety of Russian journalists will not be considered, and this decision, in Zakharova's opinion, was taken deliberately.