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U.S. leads move to grant access to press freedom group at United Nations

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The United States has led a successful charge to override a United Nations panel’s decision to deny accreditation to a well-regarded press freedom organization, and forcefully questioned the motives of some countries that were involved.

A U.N. body, the 54-member Economic and Social Council, which grants accreditation to nongovernmental agencies, voted overwhelmingly Monday evening to add the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, to its approved list.

In May, the council’s smaller subcommittee had turned down the CPJ’s request after several years of delay. In that vote, countries with abysmal human rights records, including Russia, China and Venezuela, took the lead in rejecting the CPJ .

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Accreditation gives a nongovernmental organization, or NGO, greater access to U.N. activities and venues, providing a vital and often unheard voice on behalf of civil society, dissidents, human rights activists, journalists and others whose rights often are infringed upon, advocates say.

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After the May vote, U.S. diplomats lobbied other nations to bring the CPJ application to the full council, where they marshaled broader support.

In the end, 40 countries voted in favor of CPJ and five voted against it: Russia, China, Vietnam, Zimbabwe and Rwanda.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power told the council that the CPJ was one of numerous human rights, health and other organizations that routinely get blocked by the subcommittee “simply because their work is critical of governments.”

She said dozens of laws have been proposed or enacted in 60 countries that constrain freedoms of association or assembly, part of what she called “a growing global crackdown on civil society.”

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“And it is no coincidence that many of the countries passing these laws are the same ones using the NGO Committee to block qualified organizations,” Power said.

In a statement, CPJ said accreditation will allow the organization to “deliver a counter-narrative to states.”

The organization specializes in speaking out against attacks on journalists and on behalf of freedom of expression.

Power, citing CPJ data, said that in the four years of delay when CPJ was blocked, 304 journalists were killed and hundreds more imprisoned or missing.

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