NEWSBYJACOB HUPART

With the world’s focus turning to environmental worries, particularly during this Earth Day week, we are rightly concerned about the carbon cost of coal and seeking cleaner forms of energy. However, in our pre-occupation with the environmental harms produced by mining and burning coal, we should not forget the human cost of coal — the miners who suffer daily in bringing this substance to the surface.

The recent disaster in the Upper Big Branch mine, which caused the deaths of twenty-nine West Virginian miners, is but the latest in a long tale of human suffering. In the United States, nearly seventy miners are killed each year, and almost 12,000 injured. Coal mining produces a significant share of that total number.

And the injuries suffered by coal miners are especially horrific. Not only do coal miners bear the risk of working in confined, ill-ventilated spaces deep under the ground (at constant risk to life and limb), but their work exposes them to a disease-prone environment. One common sickness suffered by current and former coal miners is black lung, which seriously reduces life expectancy — 4.5% of all U.S. coal miners suffer from this disease. Former President George W. Bush praised the coal industry to the skies, proclaiming it as the bedrock of American energy independence, and a cheap source of fuel. Cheap, perhaps, in terms of dollars and cents, but not when human life is the measurement.

Ali Hussein Sabat, a 46 year-old father of five from Lebanon, was scheduled to be executed today by Saudi Arabia for the crime of sorcery. Fortunately, the government of Saudia Arabia has issued a temporary stay on his execution — but this reprieve could be rescinded at a moment’s notice.

Sorcery? How can someone be executed for the crime of sorcery? And what did Ali Sabat do that could be considered sorcery? Did he cast a spell?

Ali Sabat was nothing more than the host of a Lebanese television show. But, because he “gave advice and predictions about the future” while on the air, he was convicted for the crime of sorcery — a crime with no legal definition in the Saudi Arabian penal code. And his alleged “crime” did not even take place in Saudi Arabia. Ali Sabat was recognized from his broadcasts while on a pilgrimage to the Islamic holy sites in Saudi Arabia, where he was arrested by the religious police.

Saudi Arabia has executed for the crime of sorcery before. In 2007, an Egyptian working as a pharmacist in Saudi Arabia was executed for allegedly using sorcery to try to separate a married couple. Merely casting a horoscope can be considered witchcraft under Saudi law, and punishable by death.

Protesters clashing with police in the streets. Thousands marching and demanding an end to a tyrannical government. Hundreds arrested. Executions of those opposed to the establishment. A rigid clampdown on the media and press. That was Iran thirty years ago — and that is Iran today.

A year ago, Iranians could delude themselves that they inhabited a country with real, albeit limited, democracy. Now the gloves are off, and the regime has shown itself for what it truly is: an embryonic military dictatorship, taking on the veneer of religion, and brutally suppressing its own people.

Last June, Iran erupted in widespread protests after the disputed and fraudulent re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. (The usual means of ensuring that the “right” candidate won—reformers struck from the ballot by Islamic clerics—proved insufficient, and Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, personally intervened so his hand-picked designee would continue to wield authority.) The government of Iran responded to the protests with a campaign of ruthless repression against its population. Members of the Basij militia have brutally attacked demonstrators, and hundreds, if not thousands, have been detained by the government.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, known both for his vast wealth and for cavorting with young women, is also one of the primary threats to the freedom of the press in Italy. Berlusconi does not appear to believe in this core value, of both human rights and Western civilization, despite being a self-professed champion of the West.

In September 2001, shortly after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Berlusconi proclaimed that, “We must be aware of the superiority of our civilization, a system that has guaranteed well-being, respect for human rights and — in contrast with Islamic countries — respect for religious and political rights.”

Silvio, take the beam out of your own eye!

According to Freedom House’s annual Freedom of the Press survey, Italy is the only country in Western Europe to be considered “Partly Free,” as opposed to “Free.” The only other countries in Europe deemed “Partly Free” are the successor states to the former Yugoslavia (although Slovenia has a marking of “Free”), Bulgaria, Romania, and Ukraine. By contrast, Mali, a predominantly Muslim country in west Africa, is regarded as “Free” in terms of its press.