I was saddened very much by a letter in yesterday’s Sunday Times*, concerning the horrific judicial murder in Iran of a sixteen year old girl, Atefeh Rajabi, because, it appears, she annoyed the so-called judge at her so-called trial for the so-called crime of “acts incompatible with chastity”.
Googling for the story produced a number of supporting accounts, including this one at Iran Focus. Reports of the case were also highlighted by Amnesty International UK last Tuesday, 24AUG04. Later I read an article about it in The Sunday Telegraph, Death and the maiden in Iran*, by Alasdair Palmer.
As Palmer says, “can you imagine the response if a 16-year-old girl was executed for having sex in Texas?”, or for that matter in any number of countries around the world?
Which begs the question, given that the BBC’s much-vaunted Monitoring Unit at Caversham brings us news round-ups from radio, television and press around the world, such as this one from the Middle East, Press relief at Najaf deal, why haven’t they apparently picked up on the tragic case of Atefeh Rajabi? And if they have, why hasn’t it been investigated and reported by the BBC yet?
They can hardly claim they don’t have time to cover Atefeh Rajabi’s story when they find time to cover stories like, to pick an example from Sunday evening, Thai capital elects new governor.
Last year, the case of Amina Lawal, sentenced to death by stoning for adultery, under Nigeria’s Sharia law, was covered extensively by the media, including the BBC. I wonder why that case was different? Perhaps it was because her story caught on, so for any major broadcaster to ignore it would have looked rather obvious. Perhaps it was because her sentence was yet to be carried out (mercifully she was acquitted after her second appeal). Perhaps it was because there was more hope of sanity prevailing in Nigeria than in Iran.
I look forward to the BBC proving me wrong in this instance – the more light that is shone into dark corners, whoever those corners belong to, and however uncomfortable it is for them, the better.
Update: Iran Focus has a lengthy update to this tragic story, with more background material and a photograph of Atefeh Rajabi. Still no noticeable coverage at the BBC though – disappointing, especially since they were so quick off the mark to cover up their extended George Galloway promotion when that was highlighted on this blog.
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But have you seen anything since on the story? How about some follow up, like maybe who is in the graves, why and when they were killed, interviews with grieving next of kin, identification and possible punishment of the executioners?
I mean the Abu-Ghaib story is nothing but follow up by not follow up some others?
To anon: If you Google the factions in question you get a lot of material, most of it spurious I admit. However, I can verify one of these is definitely true and if we were in the pub I’d tell you how I know but as I quite like my kneecaps I don’t think this is the correct forum. I also can’t really tell you who told me without revealing who that person is, sorry. But, Scout’s honour, it is true.
Let me see if I’ve got this straight…we’re supposed to take on faith an anonymous accusation backed by neither evidence nor a reasonable rational?
BTW: I am ‘anonymous’, apparently I forgot to enter my name with those two responses.
Hey, the government asked us to support an entire war based on dubiously sourced accusations of WMD backed by neither reliable evidence nor a reasonable rational.
Considering the fact that *nobody* on either side of the fence had any doubts about the existence of those WMDs, (until it became politically expediant to deny it) and considering the fact that Saddam himself certainly seemed to think he had something to hide – or why diddle the arms inspectors? Not to mention the odd sarin gas grenade, mobile chemical lab and forbidden technical parts…not to mention that mysterious convoy of trucks to Syria – which nobody ever does mention.
Of course the Left conveniently dismissed all evidence by moving the goal; *evidence* of an arms program is no good, only stockpiled arms will do. If and when those appear the goalpost will be moved again and they will claim there aren’t enough weapons, or they’re out of date, or that they were so well hidden poor Saddam probably forgot he had them…
The Left also conveniently forgets that the WMDs were only one of several reasons for going after Saddam. The *real* reason, as I’ve said before, was to remove a backer and refuge for terrorists. Liberating the Iraqi people from a very nasty dictator was a nice bonus.
Funny thing; rescuing people from a nasty dictator was a good enough reason to go into Serbia, and now is being touted as a good reason for going into Sudan. But isn’t good enough for Iraq – why is that??