Section 14

No sooner had I expressed my pre-holiday wish, that “those who know better than us and would like to tell us how to think and what to say would do the same” (i.e. go on holiday), than the outrageous “Turkmenbashi”, Saparmurat Niyazov, president of Turkmenistan, went one better and had a heart attack. Liberty Scott has the low-down on this thankfully unique dictator.

Also famously failing to make the end of 2006 was Saddam Hussein, who, regardless of anyone’s views on the death penalty or the brouhaha that followed the execution, should certainly not be mourned.

Less famous, and still not to be mourned, was Iranian Justice Minister Jamal Karimi-Rad, killed in a car crash on December 28th. Karimi-Rad used his religious police to persecute fornicators and women who didn’t wear their veils and cracked down on the media, blocking websites and arresting journalists for ‘acting against national security, disturbing public mind and insulting sanctities’.

Frankly, there are some sanctities that deserve insulting. With this thug out of the way, I hope the insulters will gather strength.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 15th, 2007 at 8:44 am and is filed under Dictatorship, Third World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.