In what was clearly a kangaroo court, Iran has sentenced Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi to eight years in prison on bogus espionage charges
Journalists have started FreeRoxana.net and are also on Twitter.
Roxana Saberi. Only a pawn in their game
I guess I am ambivalent about this and have to question her common sense and ability to see cause and effect. Why was she still in Iran three years after they took away her press credentials? She was willingly living in an oppressive country, she could have left at any time. When they took away her credentials, she should have known she was being targeted and on a list somewhere and left. If she was still reporting after that – she was asking for trouble. There is no way that she could have believed that having dual citizenship was going to protect her in Iran, especially when the ‘other’ citizenship was the US. It didn’t help the others that have been targeted. Yes Iran is playing political games and innocent people are suffering but on the other hand, if you see a truck barreling down the road – do you step into the cross walk? She apparently didn’t take her own safety seriously and is now paying the price for it.
While I’m not looking forward to getting soaked on yet another unpopular issue, I don’t think you can say it was “clearly a kangaroo court” nor that she’s just a pawn in some game.
We know how many millions the Bush administration dumped into democracy promotion in Iran, we know that money went to journalists, and we know the bulk of the money was allocated two years ago, precisely when Roxana’s “license expired” and she, for whatever reason, thought it would be OK to operate as an underground activist journalist. Hmmmmmmm
That’s the problem with just watching pawns, you don’t get to see the bigger strategy. I’m sure there are lots of levels we aren’t seeing.