In his World Press Freedom Day message on Wednesday, the United Nations secretary general called a free news media “crucial to building transparent and democratic societies.” By the end of day, though, a United Nations group was itself facing accusations of censorship.

The group, the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations, “postponed” a panel discussion marking World Press Freedom Day and acknowledged asking a participant to alter a video presentation that had singled out countries with heavy restrictions on the news media.

The alliance, a political initiative of the United Nations, said in a statement that the event was put off because the scheduled time had conflicted with another World Press Freedom Day event.

But the alliance also called the planned videos “unbalanced” and said it had asked the participant, the News Literacy Project, to “either make a comprehensive presentation of all countries where press freedom is limited, or to remove reference to specific countries.”