Have You Read This (political)?

[R. Richard]

American soldiers subject Iraqi prisoners to the threat of dig bite and also to sexually humiliating positions and the news is trumpeted around the world. A Canadian photo journalist is physically tortured and raped [WARNING, the descriptions are quite graphic!] and I only find the news article in a Canadian newspaper while I am searching for something else. Did anyone else read of this outrage?

Canadian tortured for days, says Iranian doctor

CBC News
OTTAWA - The massive injuries suffered by Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi while in Iranian custody were so disturbing to the doctor who examined her that he felt compelled to flee the country to expose what happened.

Dr. Shahram Azam examined Zahra Kazemi at Tehran's Baghiattulah hospital .
"I am a physician who is sworn to save peoples' lives," said Dr. Shahram Azam, through an interpreter at a news conference in Ottawa Thursday. "When I saw with my own eyes someone who has been tortured, without any doubt it affected my mental state."

Azam was working at Tehran's Baghiattulah military hospital on June 27, 2003 when the dying woman was brought in on a stretcher, unconscious. The 54-year-old Iranian-born Kazemi had been arrested earlier that month while photographing a demonstration outside Tehran's Evin prison.

Azam, a former member of the country's security forces, said he was shocked by the extent of Kazemi's injuries.

"The signs and bruises that existed, they were not caused at one time ... some looked fresher than the others. It was obvious those injuries were inflicted over a few days," said Azam, who kept notes of his medical assessment.

While the Iranian government has since admitted she was beaten, officials say she died when she fainted and hit her head. An Iranian security agent was later charged but then acquitted of killing her.

Azam listed the injuries he discovered on Kazemi:

A broken nose.
A large bruise on the right side of her forehead extending to the side of her head.
A bloody lump on the back of her head.
Evidence of internal bleeding of the brain.
A ruptured left ear drum.
Deep, long scratches on the back of her neck and calves.
Evidence of broken ribs.
Bruises on her abdomen and on her knees.
Evidence of flogging on her back.
Broken fingers and nails missing.
A smashed toe.
Bruised and swollen feet, possibly the result of a flogging.

As a male doctor, he was not allowed to examine her genitals, but a female nurse who did told him of "brutal damage." [This last is consistent with brutal rape.]

Azam said a neurosurgeon said a brain scan showed she had a skull fracture and extensive injuries to her brain tissue.

Doctors were unable to operate because her condition was too unstable. Kazemi had a respiratory arrest the next day and later died.

 

[Dar~]

that's terrible.





on a side note, your siggy after reading that made me giggle. Sorry if I am morbid.

 

[R. Richard]

It would appear, from the general tone of your reply that you had not previously known of the situation.

 

[cantdog]

Savak used to be second only to Mossad.

This sounds like simple beatings and rape, nothing really scientific. Such fine people. I detest the idea that we are training many people to do the same and worse.

cantdog

 

[rgraham666]

Knew all about this. It's been in the news up here for months.

I'm disgusted that out government still has ties with Iran.

And Richard? Just because someone is worse than you, it doesn't make what you do right.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

We've raped eight-year old boys in front of their mothers.
They've done horrors as well to journalists.

The thing is the more we as a superpower piss on the Geneva Convention, the more these little crackpot dictatorships are going to assume they can get away with more extreme treatment of foreign nationals.

There is much not reported on both sides, being played only to incite the moderates to radicalism and each incident begets more incidents until they can't be covered up anymore.

We have sown these seeds and now we must reap them and it's just going to get worse because the sins we plant today will likely last 20+ years. It's Hell, it's sin but no one gives a fuck and wants to blame the other guy or say "he's worse than me".

 

[R. Richard]

Knew all about this. It's been in the news up here for months.

I'm disgusted that out government still has ties with Iran.

And Richard? Just because someone is worse than you, it doesn't make what you do right.

My concern is that it has not been in the news down here. The best way to deal with something like torture is to hold it up to the light, as revolting as that might be. Once people know something like that is going on, there is generated a force to stop it. The US media has pretty much ignored the matter.

I never meant to state that what was done by US servicemen/servicewomen to detainees in Iraq was right or justified. However, at least most of what has been done by US servicemen/servicewomen is far below the level of what happened to Zahra Karemi, yet the US incidents are reported as headline news, the foreign incidents are largely unreported. In addition, the US perpetrators have been tried and punished, the foreign guys have not.

As to the SAVAK. The SAVAK was the Shah of Iran's secret police. The SAVAMA is the mullah's secret police.

I have, in a previous life, worked with (and against) the Mossad. They are efficient wimps who mainly succeed through the use of scientific techniques.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

My concern is that it has not been in the news down here. The best way to deal with something like torture is to hold it up to the light, as revolting as that might be. Once people know something like that is going on, there is generated a force to stop it. The US media has pretty much ignored the matter.

I never meant to state that what was done by US servicemen/servicewomen to detainees in Iraq was right or justified. However, at least most of what has been done by US servicemen/servicewomen is far below the level of what happened to Zahra Karemi, yet the US incidents are reported as headline news, the foreign incidents are largely unreported. In addition, the US perpetrators have been tried and punished, the foreign guys have not.

As to the SAVAK. The SAVAK was the Shah of Iran's secret police. The SAVAMA is the mullah's secret police.

I have, in a previous life, worked with (and against) the Mossad. They are efficient wimps who mainly succeed through the use of scientific techniques.

Yeah, it would be nice if all of the torture accounts, all of the horrors were held up to the light.

It would also be nice if there weren't any horrors.

While I'm wishing, I want a pony.

Sorry, I don't mean to be so seemingly uncaring and jaded, but the truth was we didn't get much reporting on the extent of our horrors, the ones who ordered the tortures were promoted and mere grunts were giving a mock trial, and we learned nothing except how to better censor the media from finding out about it. If we're setting that example, how can we hope to hold some loony fundamentalist crackpot dictatorship like Iran to the standards of the Geneva Convention and hold them to heel?

This is what I mean of reaping the seeds of our sins.