The head of the U.N. Department of Public Information (DPI), Therese Paquet-Sevigny, said Thursday she is “outraged” by a New York Post report that she supports a quota for Jews hired by the United Nations.
In a statement issued here on her behalf by a U.N. spokesman, the DPI director said she rejects “any suggestion that she endorses religious or ethnic background as a basis for hiring in her department or in the United Nations secretariat as a whole.”
The statement stressed that in all instances of hiring, Sevigny, who assumed her post less than a year ago, “has acted and will act in accordance with the U.N. charter and General Assembly resolutions, which stipulate that hiring shall be based on the highest standards of efficiency, competence and integrity, with due regard being paid to the importance of recruiting the staff on as wide a geographical basis as possible.”
The Post paraphrased her Thursday as suggesting “there should be a quota for Jews hired by the U.N.–whether they come from Palestine or from other nations.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
