COP7 – The Rebel rebels

Thirty years ago I produced, with a Russian friend, a newsletter called Soviet Labour Review.

It was as dull as it sounds and I'm not even sure what the target audience was. I left that to my friend who was a member of a Russian emigre group that opposed the communist regime.

Anyway, I remember being struck by the long and often impenetrable titles given to Soviet committees and when the sixth session of the Conference of the Parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control took place in Moscow on 2014 it seemed a perfect fit.

In a further cap doffing exercise to the old Soviet regime, the organisers of COP6 banned both the press and the public from all but the first day of the conference.

Journalist Drew Johnson was physically removed and his reports for the Washington Times (UN’s health agency boots public to work on a global tobacco tax in secret and The WHO’s secret tobacco tax were seized upon in tobacco circles – which needs a few heroes.

See Kicked out of COP (Tobacco Reporter).

Anyway, two years later the seventh session of the Conference of the Parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control is taking place in Delhi and it's déjà vu all over again. (That's a joke, btw.)

Johnson is now reporting for the Daily Caller and what we've learned is that last night, shortly before the close of play on the first day, WHO announced that both the public and the media were to be excluded from the rest of COP7.

Cue mass indignation on Twitter, some of it a bit faux if you ask me because I can't believe anyone who knows anything about the event could have been in the least bit surprised.

In some ways it makes things more interesting because it tests the ingenuity of those who have been banished. How will they respond? What tales will they bring back from the frontline of tobacco control?

That said there is little or no sign of the mainstream media at COP7 so we are reliant on new media, notably The Rebel TV which I had never heard of until yesterday.

Based in Toronto it's an online subscription channel. The news team attending COP7 is led by the extremely feisty Faith Goldy whose attempts to get answers from the Canadian delegation after the announcement of the media ban is a masterclass in persistence, even if she didn't get any answers.

It's compulsive viewing and if you have any interest in COP7 I urge you to follow Faith!

As for Drew, he's not giving up either. See below.

Journalists are banned from the #cop7fctc, but I decided to attend the meeting b/c media have the right to cover taxpayer-funded meetings pic.twitter.com/kyW0tDJCJa

— Drew Johnson (@Drews_Views) 8 November 2016

After all journalists banned from #Delhi conference, @FaithGoldy demands answers: https://t.co/kDjhy3XjNR | #COP7FCTC #TobaccoConTrol #tcot pic.twitter.com/tiwBpWfLb4

— The Rebel (@TheRebelTV) November 7, 2016