"More than 9 months have passed since 7 leaders of the Baha'i community in Iran were arrested and sent to prison with no access to legal counsel. Now the Iran government has announced the 7 have been charged with espionage. The move is the latest in decades of repressive measures against the Baha'is, the largest non-Islamic religious minority in Iran. Those measures include barring Baha'is from attending public universities or working in public agencies, destroying or closing Baha'i places of worship, bulldozing Baha'i cemeteries, legally confiscating Baha'i property, and killing Baha'is with impunity."
Since publication of this editorial, nothing has changed, and if anything, matters have gotten worse: After 17 months, the Baha'i community leaders are still in prison with no trial date, and the persecution of the Baha'is, which is reminiscent in many respects of the way in which the Jews were persecuted by the Nazis, continues unabated.
What does The New York Times have to say about this persecution? Very little. For many months, New York Times columnist Roger Cohen devoted countless op-eds to Iran in order to indoctrinate New York Times and International Herald Tribune readers with the notion that Iran is misunderstood. During his long, ongoing series of op-eds about the Persian theocracy, he mentioned Iran's Baha'is only in a single sentence, busy trying to convince us of Iran's innocuous intentions. As Cohen wrote in his June 10, 2009 op-ed, "Iran Awakens Yet Again":
"For months now, I've been urging another look at Iran, beyond dangerous demonization of it as a totalitarian state."
Although Cohen expressed short-lived outrage with the Iranian regime when street protests against the rigged elections were crushed, he quickly reverted to his usual rant and declared in his October 15, 2009 op-ed, "An Ordinary Israel":
"In other words, as I’ve long argued, Iran makes rational decisions."
Balance on the New York Times' op-ed page? Quite the contrary. In a May 24, 2009 op-ed published by The Times entitled "Are We Losing Iran?", Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett implored President Obama to forge "a new, conciliatory approach toward Iran":
"The notion of an Israeli-moderate Arab coalition united to contain Iran is not only delusional, it would leave the Palestinian and Syrian-Lebanese tracks of the Arab-Israeli conflict unresolved and prospects for their resolution in free-fall. These tracks cannot be resolved without meaningful American interaction with Iran and its regional allies, Hamas and Hezbollah."
No mention anywhere in this opinion of the Baha'is. And in a second, September 28, 2009 op-ed by the Leveretts, entitled "How to Press the Advantage with Iran", which stressed the "strategic necessity of constructive American-Iranian relations", there was again no reference to the Baha'is. Do the Leveretts believe that any mention of the Baha'is would derail "constructive American-Iranian relations"?
There was one relatively recent "On Religion" (not op-ed) article in The New York Times, dated June 26, 2009, written by Samuel G. Freedman, which detailed some of the suffering of Iran's Baha'is (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/27/us/27religion.html), but was this a sufficient counterweight given Roger Cohen's protracted harangue, reinforced by the Leveretts?
More to the point, does The New York Times have a moral obligation to present the other side of the story? They sure do. Two former New York Times Executive Editors have acknowledged that The New York Times' coverage of the holocaust was grossly inadequate. As stated by A.M. Rosenthal, father of Andrew Rosenthal who is Editorial Page Editor of The New York Times, (http://www.newseum.org/holocaust/credits.htm):
"The charge has often been made that the New York Times’ coverage of the holocaust was grossly inadequate. The clippings from the New York Times shown on the left demonstrate that the charges were justified."
And as stated by Max Frankel (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/14/news/150th-anniversary-1851-2001-turning-away-from-the-holocaust.html?pagewanted=3):
"Only six times in nearly six years did The Times's front page mention Jews as Hitler's unique target for total annihilation. Only once was their fate the subject of a lead editorial. Only twice did their rescue inspire passionate cries in the Sunday magazine.
And to this day the failure of America's media to fasten upon Hitler's mad atrocities stirs the conscience of succeeding generations of reporters and editors. It has made them acutely alert to ethnic barbarities in far-off places like Uganda, Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo. It leaves them obviously resolved that in the face of genocide, journalism shall not have failed in vain."
Given its none too pretty past, is The New York Times sufficiently "alert to ethnic barbarities" perpetrated against Iran's Baha'is, or have they perhaps been in lockstep with a determination by the Obama administration to reach out to this barbaric regime and avoid offending Iran's mullahs? Judge for yourself.
No comments:
Post a Comment