The United States is denying assertions by the editor of a United Nations report on freedom and governance in Arab countries that it is preventing its publication.
The survey was prepared by Arab scholars for distribution by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). Each contributor focused on his or her own society, attempting to present a frank and comprehensive picture of its weaknesses.
The UNDP itself refused to back the claim of editor Nadir Firghani. In a statement, the U.N body said that the report is in its “final stages of preparation,” and that “no formal discussions on editorial content have taken place, [and] no government has asked for their suppression.”
Nevertheless, Firghani says that the report’s contributors are considering publishing it independently under the authors’ names.