
News Alert: NTY Op-Ed page discovers Iran isn’t dreamland
Roger Cohen's columns notwithstanding, The New York Times Op-Ed page finally seems to have discovered some imperfections in Iran (at least, the online edition did).
In a blogpost Monday signed "The Editors," the Times examines the fate of people detained in Iranian prisons. What can detainees in Iran -- like Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi -- expect? Solitary confinement, torture, insults and more:
I was arrested in fall 2004 because of my work as a political editor for several reformist newspapers in Iran, as well as my critical comments about the regime on my blog and on other Web sites.
I spent 60 days in solitary confinement, where I was released only three times a day to use a bathroom for two to three minutes under camera surveillance. I was interrogated and tortured for days on end. Security agents blindfolded me and beat me repeatedly, pushing my head into the wall and onto a desk. They asked me questions about my relations with other journalists, particularly women, and with Westerners, and they constantly insulted my family.
I felt alone and was afraid for my life. I had no contact with the outside world — not even a newspaper. The interrogators told me — convinced me — that my friends and colleagues had forgotten about me. While in prison, I was charged with eight different counts of “participation in societies,” “propagating against the state,” publication of lies, “insulting the leader” and public disturbance. I was given no opportunity to defend myself.
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Matt
04/21/09 07:28 PM
Wouldn’t it be nice if our own government hadn’t engaged in torture these last eight years? It would have been nice to have been able to stand tall and take the moral high ground without any charges of hypocrisy from our allies or our enemies.
There are costs to torture. Bad publicity like this is extremely expensive to fix. Good branding is a valuable commodity.