>Coming back to the question of the media, do you remember seeing this
>AP story below on the front page of the New York Times or any other
>Western newspaper? If Iran were a client state of Washington and
>Egypt were in Iran's place, no doubt this would have been the front
>page material and the New York Times story that Doug posted here would
>have been buried deep inside the paper or perhaps available only on
>the Web, attracting few Westerners' attention or greeted with a shrug
>by those who do happen on it.
>
><http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/21/AR2007012100468.html>
>Video Shows Egypt Prisoner's Humiliation
I recall seeing the story on a national TV programme recently. Fairly prominent, somewhat in depth documentary style report (perhaps the ABCs Foreign Correspondent, or an SBS documentary. Though not headline news I recall. I also saw the documentary about the state execution of the 16 year old Iranian rape victim on local TV news. Again, not headline news, but prominent enough that I saw the documentary report on free-to-air TV.
But that isn't really the point, there's no use you shooting the messenger. The bottom line is that Iran is a vicious feudal regime. They needn't bother blaming the messenger because the dirty little secret that they like to execute child rape victims gets played up by their enemies. If they don't like their enemies making a meal of their perverted religion and legal system, then stop doing it, simple.
But they wouldn't understand that, because they are backward primitive barbarians. They can never understand the art of public relations, because they regard people as mere beasts, chattel. That's part of the backward philosophy they represent, if they respected the ordinary people of Iran as human beings, they could respect people of the west and understand why we despise the filthy primitive social system these relics are trying to create in Iran. But then, if they had any normal modern respect for other human beings, they wouldn't tolerate executing child rape victims to begin with. It wouldn't even occur to a figure of authority like a judge to try such a thing, he'd know it would be a suicidal affront to public opinion.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas