Western Media Uninterested In Plight Of Hero-Martyr For Democracy, Just Because Bush Endorsed Him

This is a week old, but is an absolute must-read.

Together with several colleagues, I had been trying for months to persuade the Western media to take an interest in Ganji, a former Khomeinist revolutionary who is now campaigning for human rights and democracy. But we never got anywhere because of one small hitch: President Bush had spoken publicly in support of Ganji and called for his immediate release.

And that, as far as a good part of the Western media is concerned, amounts to a kiss of death. How could newspapers that portray Bush as the world's biggest "violator of human rights" endorse his call in favor of Ganji?

To overcome that difficulty, some of Ganji's friends had tried to persuade him to make a few anti-American, more specifically anti-Bush, pronouncements so that the Western media could adopt him as a "hero-martyr."... Would Ganji adopt [this] tactic in order to get media attention in the West? The answer came last January and it was a firm no.

The result was that Ganji, probably the most outspoken and courageous prisoner of conscience in the Islamic Republic today, became a non-person for the Western media.

Read it all. It gets worse: "UNICEF Ambassador" Bianca Jagger won't take an interest in Ganji, because there are more important prisoners to worry about -- like the terrorists in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

"Is Ganji the same as the alleged terrorists in Guantanamo Bay?" I asked.

"Well, yes, I mean no, I mean yes," she mumbled. "But they are all prisoners, aren't they?"

Yep. They're all prisoners, Bianca.

posted by Ace at 02:24 PM

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