These past couple days have been very unpleasant for many citizens of the world. However if we ask people to highlight the most important headlines of the week everyone would say “Oklahoma tornado”. The damage that tornado caused is in fact heartbreaking, but is this the only and most important headline? What about series of bombings in Iraq? Do people even know that in the same day the tornado killed 51, about 90 people were killed in seven different bombings in Iraq?
Probably not. And it is not their fault. It is media outlet’s fault. They are supposed to keep people updated about facts and stories of the world, however they prefer to be selective and tell us what they think is important, not what we should know.
Our question is, do humans live have different values based on their citizenship? If yes, then it is a clear discrimination toward certain groups of people.
If not, then why loss of lives of people in third world countries is not worth sharing by media?
One of the human rights fundamental is equality, on May 20, 2013, many people lost their lives in Oklahoma tornado and their stories made headlines so other people would show their sympathy toward the victims.
Lives of all humans are valuable. If Mother Nature takes lives away there is not much humans can do. However, when lives are taken away by some extremists there is much that can and should be done.
SRW condemn the selective attitude of the media. At SRW we believe media must practice the code of ethics. They also must know human lives are valuable regardless of their citizenship, after all we are all citizen on one world.
By: Hawraa, A Shia Rights Activist and Specialist _ May 21st, 2013
