By John Ballard
Mona Al Tahawy is one of my heroines. No one who has followed the Arab Spring can be unaware of her powerful journalism. This AP headline is over-the-top stupid. Is there some suspicion she may instead have been enjoying afternoon tea?
US-Egyptian Writer Alleges Sexual Abuse by Police
"Alleges"? Does someone think she made it up?
Mona Altahawy was badly abused before being released and given cab money when they put her on the street.
The caption under this photo reads thus...
In this photo provided by activist Mona Eltahawy, Mona Eltahawy, 44, from New York City, is seen with both arms in casts after being released by Egyptian security forces in Cairo, Egypt, Thursday, Nov. 24, 2011. A prominent Egyptian-born U.S. columnist said uniformed police sexually assaulted, beat and blindfolded her after she was detained Thursday near Tahrir Square during clashes, leaving her left arm and right hand broken and in casts. Eltahawy arrived in Egypt Wednesday evening and went straight to Tahrir Square, getting close to the front lines of clashes between protesters and the police at the nearby Interior Ministry. She was detained outside the ministry in the early morning hours of Thursday and released about 12 hours later.(AP Photo/Courtesy Mona Eltahawy)
For a fuller account of what happened go here.
There is a more flattering photo that makes me think she was wearing backward for this picture a Pillsbury Doughboy shirt which Sandmonkey says was his.
They messed with the wrong journalist this time.
What? You expected AP to have their brains anywhere else but around the oligarchs' dick?
ReplyDeletePlus, conservatives don't believe women have the capacity to tell the truth, unless they're speaking the corporate line.
""Alleges"? Does someone think she made it up?"
ReplyDeleteI'm not a lawyer, but if AP left off the hedge and merely said that someone specifically did commit a wrong, they would predjudice the person in court and the person could not be convicted of the wrong. That would not actually apply in this case, of course, but as a matter of principle, journalists are correct not to convict "ex judice" by making statements of guilt when people have not been convicted by a proper process of law. That's the legalistic argument.
But, too, in all fairness we cannot have it both ways. We are horrified that Al Alwaki was assasinated without trial because "everyone knew he was a terrorist" and despite the fact that he had never been charged, let alone convicted in due process of law, and now we are critical of the media not being willing to say, without proper conviction by due process, that someone committed a crime.
If someone accuses you of theft, do you want your local paper to say that you committed a theft, or do you want them to say merely that it is alledged that you committed theft until such time as you have a chance to confront your accuser in a court of law?
Yeah, Bill, I understand all that. You're right, of course. In principle. But in this case questioning Mona Altahawy's veracity is akin to suggesting the Egyptian Interior Ministry or SCAF were innocent of her charges. What might they do? After all the Committee to Protect Journalists has raft of similar reports and has advised media NOT to send women reporters to Egypt.
ReplyDelete(One of the great satisfactions of blogging is being free of professional constraints I find onerous.)
You miss the point. They are not questioning her veracity, they are obeying principles of journalistic integrity. There will always be cases of "journalists" saying the someone should be convicted because "it is obvious he did it" and not only do we not want people convicted for that reason, we do not want journalists saying that before convictions have been obtained.
ReplyDeleteYou are free to say whatever you want because you are a blogger and are not constrained by requirements such as journalistic integrity if you choose not to be so constrained, but we (or at least I) do not want our mass media to be defined in that manner.
I must confess that I have a higher level of respect for writers of any description who maintain professionalism and integrity whether it is "onerous" or not.