UN bars Peking dissident

NEW YORK - Despite the intervention of the US Ambassador to the UN yesterday, the UN Secretary General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, banned a Chinese dissident from holding a press conference at UN headquarters, writes Peter Pringle.

Instead, Shen Tong, a driving force behind the Tiananmen Square democracy movement in 1989, gave an impromptu street news conference with hundreds of reporters shoving to hear him speak.

It was the first time a UN Secretary-General had tried openly to ban someone who displeased a member state. The UN Charter states that the Secretary-General 'shall not seek or receive instructions from any government . . . '

A US Congressman warned that the case would 'certainly weigh on our minds' during debate on China's trading status.