A friend of mine is a member of the Kansas City International Visitors Council, so she gets to meet people from all over the world when they come to check out KC. Earlier this week, she agreed to host a home-cooked dinner for several delegates here on a three-week tour of the U.S.
She was a little nervous at the prospect of keeping up conversation and cooking at the same time, so she invited me over to meet her visitors, who are each involved with the press in their home countries.
The man in the picture on the far right is Levon Barseghyan, who
founded a press club in his country, Armenia. He told us that in 2008,
more than 20 Armenian journalists were killed on the job, and 10
civilians were killed by police when they peacefully protested the lack
of a free press.
The guy on the far left in the picture is Guillermo Noriega
Esparza, from Mexico. He's the director of a non-governmental
organization that fights corruption in Mexico, called Sonora Cuidadana A.C.
He hosts a radio show called "Transparency on Air," and he told us
about the death threats he's received because of his willingness to
point out governmental corruption in Sonora. (He also told some really
great jokes, which was impressive because they were still funny after
translation.)
The
man in the middle is Mohammed Said Carpenter, from Nigeria. An amazing
storyteller, he told us about a newspaper he printed containing his
regular editorial letters to dictator Ibrahim Babangida,
which he signed, "From History," which were meant to keep the
dictator's many acts of injustice fresh in his fellow citizens' memory.
He can only print a limited number of papers, but when he hands out
each issue, people take it and make copies and pass it along. Carpenter
has also been a radio host, but it's a struggle, because electricity in
areas of Nigeria is spotty, making radio shows dependent on the price
of diesel fuel required by the generators to broadcast a signal.
Carpenter
waved off Esparza and Barseghyan's stories of journalists killed in the
line of duty; in Nigeria, he says, the number of journalists killed
would be much higher, if anyone bothered to count. "They just
disappear," he says with a shrug.
Needless to say, today I am a very grateful, very spoiled, American journalist.
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Levon did, in fact, say that over 20 journalists were killed on the job in 2008 in Armenia.
I think that the guests with the KCIVC were happy to have an audience willing to listen to the atrocities that are committed against freedom of the press in their contries. I do not think they had to make up their stories for our entertainment.
Furthermore, I feel very fortunate that we had the opportunity to hear such stories, and that these men had the courage to tell them. I have met visitors from other countries who would not speak of the infringements on their rights by their governments even while in the United States.
Awww, how cute, bleeding heart catches a partial glimpse of the truth and handles it by Clothes Whoring the foreigners. What a fantastic use of the free press, ladies and gents, it is almost like the flag raised today only for The Plog or something.
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