NY Times editorializes a news story
Posted by BrianCall me crazy, but I consider people who commit crimes warranting the death penalty to be criminals. The New York Times does not see it that way. This is an excerpt from a recent story discussing the hanging of convicted criminals in Iraq:
The victims are led up a set of steel stairs to a platform, about 15 feet above the ground, and nooses fashioned from one-and-a-quarter-inch-thick hemp ropes are slipped over their necks. The executioners are different each time, drawn from among employees of the Justice Ministry who volunteer for the job. Many have lost relatives or friends in insurgent attacks, officials said.
With a tug of two large levers, the steel trapdoors drop open and the victims fall through. The doors make a loud clanging sound as they slam against the apparatus, according to people who have witnessed hangings. The jarring noise echoes off the cold, unadorned concrete walls.
Death is supposed to come instantly — a doctor is on hand to certify it — and the bodies are removed to a cooler where they are held before being handed over to the victims’ families. The entire process is recorded by a photographer and a video cameraman and the images are stored in a government archive.
Victims, criminals, what’s the difference. How foolish of me to assume for all these years that the victims were the innocent individuals whose lives were taken or shattered by the criminals.
Anyone think that the Times is tipping its hand a bit about its view on the death penalty?
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December 20th, 2006 at 2:20 pm
I would say that there are two other ways to look at the use of the term “victim” in this article aside from the conjecture that NYT is promoting an anti-death penalty position.
The article mentions earlier that “Human rights groups have questioned the transparency of the criminal justice system in Iraq and the ability of defendants to get a fair trial. And the United Nations has requested that the Iraqi government commute the sentences of all the prisoners on Iraq’s death row.” Therefore, those subjected to hangings are the “victims” of an unjust government.
Likewise, setting aside the connotation that there must be a crime associated with a “victim”, the stricter definition of victim, namely “one that is acted on and usually adversely affected by a force or agent “(1) is possibly employed here since the hangee is most definitely being adversely affected by an agent regardless of being in furtherance of a crime on the State’s part.
It may be a stretch but not more so than NYT inserting three “victims” in order to rid the world of the death penalty.
(1) http://m-w.com
December 21st, 2006 at 4:53 pm
The UN has consistently opposed the death penalty and their call for the death sentences handed down by Iraqi courts to be commuted is not at all surprising or necessarily indicative of a failed legal system. I’m not saying Iraq’s legal system is perfect; I just wouldn’t hang (pun intended) my hat on the UN’s claim.
I know you’re playing devil’s advocate, but your second point is quite a stretch indeed. Am I a victim because I pay taxes? Certainly, when the government forcibly separates me from my money I am adversely affected.
I like the Times and I am no where nearly as critical of them as many, but calling convicted criminals victims is absurd. I don’t think the Times is intentionally trying to change the world, but their views of the death penalty obviously colored the language selected for this article. I have no problem calling them “the condemned,” which would not convey the message that they were actually guilty without carte blanche calling them all victims.