Posted on 02/13/2006 5:49:37 AM PST by conservativecorner
Laura Bush has said of Pakistan's Mukhtar Mai that she "proves that one woman can really change the world." In 2002, by order of a village council, Mai was gang raped publicly and paraded naked before hundreds of onlookers for purported misconduct not involving her, but by her brother. Despite threats, she convinced a higher Pakistan court to overturn the verdict, giving the compensation money to open a school in her village. But on Jan. 20, The New York Times reported that her scheduled appearance at the United Nations that day was canceled by the United Nations.
At the United Nations' television studios, she was to appear in "An Interview with Mukhtar Mai, The Bravest Woman on Earth." But Pakistan protested because Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz would be at the United Nations that very day, and accordingly, the United Nations officials didn't want to embarrass this dignitary. Said U.N. undersecretary general for communications, Shashi Tharoor: "We are obliged to take into account the views formally expressed by member states."
But it was only after news accounts of what happened that Secretary-General Kofi Annan, very embarrassed, offered to reschedule Mai, to be co-sponsored by Pakistan.
Then, recently, for only the second time in U.N. history, a movie, "Che" — glorifying the ruthless presiding executioner in Castro's Cabana prison from 1957 to 1959 — was permitted to be filmed in the U.N.'s General Assembly, with Annan's authorization.
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
"officials didn't want to embarrass this dignitary"
They don't seem to have any problem embarrassing American dignitaries. In fact, they seem to go out of their way to do so.
So, I have several questions for the U.N.
1. Which countries are fair game for embarrassment and which are off limits?
2. How do you decide which list a country is on?
3. Why does embarrassment trump truth?
"Jobs program for third world bureaucrats."
Jeanne Kirkpatrick
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