March 11, 2007

Christopher Smart, Salt Lake Tribune: how do you spell propaganda?

Christopher Smart of the Salt Lake Tribune offers "With parents deported to India, Utah teen finds comfort in spelling":

How do you spell "perseverance?"

When 13-year-old Kunal Sah stands before television cameras May 30-31 to represent Utah - for the second time - at the National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., his parents won't be there with him.

Ken and Sarita Sah were deported back to India last July after 16 years residing legally in this country. They ultimately lost their battle to remain under tough U.S. immigration regulations in the post-9/11 atmosphere...

[...heart-wrenching moments deleted...]

How do you spell "heartache?"

I am not making any of that up. The article appears to have been rewritten as an Associated Press story here, it appears in the Houston Chroncle here, the Salt Lake Tribune here, and as a Scripps "news" story here. It's refered to here as a "kleenex box moment".

Now, let's turn to the facts that Christopher Smart left out:

Sah's asylum claim? He feared Muslim persecution in his home country. That might engender sympathy—until one realizes that his home country is India, which has 800 million fellow Hindus for Sah to live amongst. And that Sah's basis for fearing persecution was because, as a member of the radical Hindu nationalist organization Vishwa Hindu Parishad, he "took a very active part in organizing and conducting [anti-mosque] meeting[s]" and that he "actively participated in the riots to [attempt to] demolish the Babri Mosque." (Vishwa eventually succeeded in destroying the mosque in 1992, causing religious riots that killed 900 people.)

Posted to Immigration_piipps at March 11, 2007 01:08 PM