Why the Death of Canadian
Photo-Journalist is not Making Headlines
By
Potkin Azarmehr
When I heard about the 54
year old Canadian photo-journalist going into a coma after repeatedly
being beaten while in detention in Iran, I said to myself, this is it,
this will break the British press' silence on the harsh religious
dictatorship in Iran. Zahra Kazemi was in a coma for a week and I saw
nothing on TV and nothing in the British newspapers.
When she died on Saturday, I
thought this is it, they are bound to report it now and for once let the
world know what kind of thugs the Iranian youth have to deal with. I
switched on the TV, to my amazement the top news was whether George Best
had started drinking again or not! No mention of Zahra Kazemi. For
heaven's sake she is after all a journalist colleague, I said to myself
who had a lot more courage to cover real news than a servile "let's
not rock the boat' BBC correspondent like Jim Muire. Why the silence??? I
mean if she had been killed while in detention in Zimbabwe you would have
all had a field day about it, right? It would be all over the front page,
on TV, Zimbabwe opposition politicians would have been interviewed, The
evil Mugabe would have been portrayed as even more evil... but this is
Islamic Republic of Iran run by the Mullahs. They may issue a fatwa and
the Muslims in UK will come after you. Then I saw Dan De Luce's report and
put aside my Iranian conspiracy theory instincts.
However when I read Dan De
Luce' report I just blew into a rage. Once again the cunning Khatami is
fooling the world. He has ordered an enquiry and rather than the Islamic
Republic being condemned, everyone is singing the praises of the
"reformist" president.
But my Iranian memory
remembers his same appeasing tricks with the serial murders of Iranian
dissidents, when Khatami in the same fashion tried to contain the anger
the Iranian population was feeling at the time. Just like now, he ordered
an enquiry, lots of committees and bodies were formed and the theatre went
on for a while until the tempers cooled down. At the end, none of the main
culprits and orchestrates of the murders were jailed, the families of
victims felt let down and their defense lawyers ended up in jail!
So once again Dan De Luce
goes on about the "reformist" president this and that and
finishes the article by saying: "...hardline clergy closed another
newspaper yesterday and arrested two more journalists and student
activists as part of a intensifying crackdown on dissent following
pro-democracy protests last month. "
Please for once allow an
Iranian to set the record straight. Once the power of the clergy in Iran
is threatened there is no reformist and hardliner section, they all get
down together and crackdown. After all do you not forget when Geneive Abdo
your own correspondent
in Iran at the time along
with her husband were expelled from Iran. She was pulling her hair out
saying the ones behind our expulsion are the ones that are known as the
"reformists" and not the "hardliners".
A mullah is a mullah from
humble souls dependent on handouts they have reached a position where they
are ruling Iran, influencing the region and threatening the democratic
values of the free world. They will not give up easily. There should be a
global front against their global threat of fundamentalist terror.
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