Existing comment:
1980 Spot News: Justice and Cleansing in Iran:
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's Islamic Revolution had steamrolled over Iran. Khomeini imposed his Shiite Muslim beliefs and destroyed "corrupt Western influences." The country's 4 million Sunni Muslim Kurds rejected him. Khomeini's Revolutionary Guards slaughtered scores, dispensing "justice" in mock trials.
On Aug. 27, 1979, nine Kurdish rebels and two former police officers of the deposed Shah of Iran were executed in Sanandaj. A photographer from Ettela'at, an Iranian newspaper, was there. To protect the photographer's life, his photo ran without credit in Ettela'at. A UPI staffer in Iran acquired the picture from the paper, and it was transmitted worldwide.
Explained the UPI staffer: "Those in the bureau often sat gazing at the picture, and contemplated the numbing transition from life to death that it depicts."
The Pulitzer Prize was awarded to "an unarmed photographer," which is how it stayed until 2006, when The Wall Street Journal conclusively identified the photographer as Jahangir Razmi, who now runs a photo studio in Tehran. "There's no more reason to hide," Razmi told The Journal. |