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Iran: Jailed reporter Roxana Saberi on Day 5 of a hunger strike

W

WhiskeyRobber

I am surprised no one is discussing this? I guess out of sight...

Tom Taylor says

NPR & BBC freelance reporter Roxana Saberi has spent the last week under a self-imposed hunger strike, to protest her imprisonment by Iranian authorities who accuse her of espionage. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty says Saberi's father told the media his daughter "seems to be weak" as she passes the fifth day of her hunger strike. Saberi was arrested in January for allegedly buying wine, a crime in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Charges against her were then escalated to working without a proper press pass, and increased further to sepionage, which carries a death sentence, Saberi was ordered jailed for eight years, despite pleas from the West for her release. She vows to stay on her hunger strike until she is released.

http://www.radio-info.com/
 
I agree. Maybe it's a symptom of how inward-looking we are. If it's not loud and preposterous, and if it isn't happening here or happening to us, we don't want to hear it. (I can't help wondering if maybe the blowhards don't consider her "one of us"). It's anyone's guess whether the Iranian authorities took her as a bargaining chip with the USA, or because of an internal power struggle, or because they actually believe she did something that they accused her of; buying wine, inadequate credentials or spying - take your pick. I don't think it's anything to do with what she reported, otherwise all the western journalists in Iran would have been jailed by now.

Anyway, Ms. Saberi is a shining example of the kind of reporter we need in our media. I'm sure the administration is working hard behind the scenes for her release, as would any administration.
 
It’s regrettable that there has been so little concern among the radio people on this board with fate of Ms. Saberi, one of their own, first on her arrest and now after her most welcome release. I fear that this reticence may be understandable evidence of how remote most radio people feel from the news-gathering side of their medium – which is no accident, given how thoroughly news has been gutted from the schedule by most commercial radio managements.

It's fashionable among some sections of the public to sneer at the mainstream media. I do my share of complaining, but the fact is that without the well-known and not so well-known reporters like Ms. Saberi who wear out their share of shoe leather, we would never get to learn the news that affects our lives (and that also provides the overpaid blowhards of talk radio the raw material that they mold and twist the way it suits them).

Anyway, I would guess that her release would not have happened without substantial pressure on Iran both by the administration and the broadcasting organizations that she works for. Now, how about some spotlight on Laura Ling and Euna Lee, American reporters with Current TV who have been detained in North Korea since March?

Meanwhile, welcome home Ms. Saberi.
 
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