Thursday, June 25, 2009

Neda's martyrdom is fueled by Western media for all the wrong reasons

Neda Agha-Soltani deserves to be a martyr.

She was fatally shot on June 20 during the Tehran street demonstrations protesting the outcome of the presidential election. Her death could galvanize reformists who at the moment are quickly losing steam in their bid to have the election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad thrown out.

But the Western media’s fascination with her death is troubling on several different levels. The American media has no problem replaying the brief YouTube clip of Ned’s horrific death on television or providing a link to it. Yet they would never think of airing similar graphic images of an American woman. American newspapers publish no photos and the networks air no footage of dead or dying U.S. soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan. Yet Neda is fair game.

For the complete article, please click on this link to Arabisto.com.

7 comments:

Malaysia Hits said...

The dead is not Neda alone, why only story about her being highlighted so much? What about others?

Yasser said...

We must realize that, it's a dirty game of US, and US is using Mousavi as his culprit. 69% peoples in iran support ahmedinejad and minority supporters i.e Mousavis should understand that, otherwise US would make iran same lyke what they did to IRAQ.

The Queen said...

Which network showed that? I never saw it anywhere on televison here in the U.S.

Sharon said...

Youtube is not the American media. Our news broadcasts did not show this clip. Items posted to Youtube are done by individuals, and the video footage had to have come from someone present in Tehran. Did an American record this?

Anonymous said...

As someone said, Youtube is not American media, and American media is not "western media". But while we're on it, who is this west of which you demonize? Would you include, say, Finland, Portugal, Albania, Austria? What about Argentina, South Africa, Morocco or Croatia? Maybe even Australia? Whatever you mean, I imagine it, perhaps wrongly, to include a great many countries you've never been to, and languages you don't understand, and cultures you've never experienced, and media you've certainly never seen or read enough to label them as having a "fascination with her death"..

Anonymous said...

i only ever saw it on youtube aswell. but i would argue the exact opposite..that such events did not get enough media attention. not proper media attention anyway...im from australia, and most media outlets here only focused on the support shown for moussavi, without actually realising (intentionally or unintentionally) that the protests were more against the regime itself. the iranian people want a regime change..this does not suit most capitalist powers in the world as they would rather have even ahmadenijad than a socialist, left leaning iran

Anonymous said...

I live in the U.S., and to my knowledge this story is completely untrue. Never have I seen graphic images of her death on television or in the newspaper, and I have never seen a link to a youtube video that shows her death. Once again, this seems like someone with an agenda..i.e. painting the Americans and the 'West' as hypocrites and terrible people.