March 06, 2008
Filthy Iranian Trickery
From the theocratic, religion of peace government of Iran comes this disgusting stunt.
The Iranian government has presented an Iranian-American journalist working for an American-funded radio station with a choice between her 95-year-old mother and prison.To be fair, using persecution of family members to leverage compliance from a targeted individual is employed regularly by authoritarian regimes. As such, it's not surprising. However, that doesn't make the tactic any less despicable.Over the weekend, a revolutionary court in Tehran sentenced the journalist Parnaz Azima (pic) to a year in prison for spreading "anti-state propaganda." If Ms. Azima, who is both an American and Iranian citizen, does not serve her sentence, the state will seize the home of her 95-year-old mother.
"This is a filthy trick they have done," Ms. Azima said in an interview by telephone from Prague, where she works for the Persian-language Radio Farda. "This is what they do with most people like me." She explained that the sentence meted out in absentia on March 1 was really a gambit to get her to quit her job with Radio Farda. She said similar tactics have been used against other intellectuals and journalists in Iran.
