Abby Ohlheiser: The State Department has weighed in on the case of Iranian Christian pastor, Youcef Nadarkhani, who was arrested in 2009 and sentenced to death for apostasy. He’d be the first executed for that reason in Iran since 1990. But this month, the Iranian Supreme Court offered him a way out: they’ve overturned the death penalty sentence, sent the case back to a lower court, and asked the pastor to repent. The interesting part of the story is how Nadarkhani’s case has become part of an international game of chicken for power.
State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland has said:
While Iran’s leaders hypocritically claim to promote tolerance, they continue to detain, imprison, harass, and abuse those who simply wish to worship the faith of their choosing.
We join the international community in continuing to call on the Iranian government to respect the fundamental rights of all its citizens and uphold its international commitments to protect them.
As Get Religion noted, the story’s not really circulating far beyond the reach of religious or conservative news and opinion sources. But why?
Well (and I mean to be making no apologies here), one quite significant reason could be the reduction of foreign correspondents among Western news sources and the contraction of international coverage in American press. But here’s another reason: Stories of Christian persecution are always loaded, and they’re often distributed to the media by loaded sources. This particular story seems to have come from a series of press releases from Christian Solidarity Worldwide (“A voice for the voiceless”), who watch for precisely this sort of persecution. Stories like these are particularly useful for reminding those who are involved in or who care about evangelical work in the Middle East that there is a danger to their work. Nadarkhani’s persecution justifies their mission.
The story’s been picked up primarily by members of the press who specifically watch for instances of persecution and abuse of Christians in the Middle East (and therefore invested in portraying Muslim governments as intolerant of Christian or Western principles). So when a story like this comes along — a ruling by the Iranian Supreme Court on freedom of religion that gets the attention of the US Department of State — it’s circulated among those for whom it already has legs, and it tends to stay there.
The consequences of that self-selecting audience? Stories of Christian persecution, well-circulated among those who look for them and speak the same language about what they mean, continue to be an easy point of contention against the perceived bias of the mainstream media. Likewise, once nicely packaged with those sets of assumptions and meanings – placed within a missionary context – the stories, perhaps, become inseparable from their evangelical significance.
3 comments
Jihad Resistance says:
Jul 20, 2011
no need to print this it’s just for you Abby
The main stream liberal media has failed to weigh in on the case of Iranian Christian pastor, Youcef Nadarkhani, Why?
Islam declared war on The West on September 11th 2001. It’s a miserable religious war. Only the conservative half of America has accepted what it will take to actually win this fight. Islam is a religion that not only sided with, but helped Hitler in WWII. Islam when fully implemented is a violent, collectivist, fascist, gangster, political system that supports slavery, child marriage, polygamy, woman hating, genital mutilation, Antisemitism, the murder of apostates, and the subjugation or murder of all non-Muslims.
Iran is a Shariah compliant, Islamic state. Iran has recently moved 10,000 troops into Iraq and they are maneuvering ships at sea for battle. It is reasonable to assume that they have the bomb or will shortly. The State Department should shine a light on Iran when ever possible for national security reasons.
The stories that come from Shariah Islam defiantly do “…become inseparable from their evangelical significance.” Because Islam is a religion that has specifically started a war with The West, and states in the Koran that Christians and Jews are the vilest of creatures and should be killed or enslaved.
Although mainstream media, government officials, and many Americans in general have tried in vain to pretend that it’s anything else but a religious war, from Reagan to Clinton to Bush and Obama, the truth is Islam wants to take over The West. Apologists who spend time pointing out the differences in Christianity and Secularism only serve Islam as useful idiots since all non-Muslims are K’firs and Infidels and Islam equally hates us all.
The mainstream anti-American Marxists media seeks to not contradict the ideas nicely packaged by Islamic deception ( known as Al Taqiyya) that has been presented with certain sets of assumptions and meanings, possibly due to reporters desire not to get fired for offending the liberal audience or managers. Richard Sanbrook, writes in his laughable 2006 article condemning speech that “offends”
http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-02-16-sambrook-en.html
“We think that viewers and listeners want to see and hear what is happening in the world but in a way that seeks to inform rather than offend. Indeed, the main issue facing us today is how to weigh freedom of expression against the offence some views may cause.”
or maybe it’s the shared totalitarian language of the anti-American-Marxist media reporter and the Islamist have in common, but more than likely it’s just the complete lack of real knowledge about Islam and Shariah Law and the inability to get past the uncomfortable “offended phase”.
Islam is offensive, face it. They are at war with you whether you like it or not, that’s offensive. What ever the cause, the media “reaction” to not report the pastors story is viewed as bias by traditional Americans who know that The Western culture if far superior to the crimes of Islam, even for anti-American-Marxist media reporters.
Apostasy in Any Other Country « The Revealer says:
Sep 28, 2011
[...] previously considered why these stories circulate where they do, minus the usual “liberal media conspiracy” [...]
Put a Gun to their Head « The Revealer says:
Mar 29, 2012
[...] Many of us are familiar with stories like that of Youcef Nadarkhani (discussed at The Revealer here and here), who has been convicted of “religious crimes” in Iran. It is questionable whether [...]