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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 6, 1976)
<-editorial Printing the news The start of a new quarter is an appropriate time to acquaint our readers with the editorial policy and philosophy of the Emerald and the role the editorial page plays in expressing and implementing this policy. The Emerald s editorial policy is to print news of interest to our readership, the University community. In our selection of that news, we strive to Keep in mind the heterogeneous nature of our audience. Included in this audience are students, faculty, staff and friends of the University in the larger community of Eugene and throughout the state. While we realize that all of these groups are involved in the University experience, our primary concern is with the students. Our news selection includes stories that originate at the state, national and international level. Obviously decisions made at the state or national level can directly affect us as students. In addition to news stories, it is the Emerald’s policy to publish comments and criticisms on public issues. More importantly it is our policy to carefully distinguish between news and editorial material. Any material that draws a conclusion, espouses a position or offers a comment on a news incident if clearly labeled as analysis, opinion or editorial. Analysis material may be found on almost any page of the paper, but editorials and opinion columns are limited strictly to the editorial page. There is a need for both straight news and editorial material. Most readers want news stories that are limited to objective facts and the additional perspective offered by editorial material. The facts supply readers with information so that they can reach their own conclusions on important issues. The perspective of editorial material offers readers a larger context in which several, perhaps isolated, facts can be related to an important issue. This perspective is one of the reasons the Emerald publishes an editorial page. _ . . Our editorials represent the editorial position of the Emerald and are marked as such to distinguish them from other material on the editorial page. The editorial page may also contain material by national syndicated columnists and cartoonists as weH as letters to the editor and opinion columns by local contributors. This blend of nationally oriented and locally produced editorial material further reflects the Emerald s policy of printing material of both local and national interest. The Emerald’s policy of printing news selected for a specific audience and commenting on public issues gives our readers both the objective facts of news stories and a larger perspective s these facts. This policy could perhaps best be summed by a popular expression used by other newspaper people to explain their editorial policy, “We print the news and raise hell.' V Letters— Law bungles I would like to call your readers’ attention to a problem with the new “Voter Registration By Mail” form that could work to the severe disadvantage of voters who have already used, or will use that form in the future. Registration by mail is a significant step forward in the administration of our election laws, but as with so much new legislation, bureaucratic rule mak ing to implement details of the new law has bungled rather badly. The traditional Oregon partisan primary law now in effect in this state and 39 others enrolls voters principally as Democrats or Re publicans. In the past, registrars have explained to those not wanting to register as Democrats or Republicans (or as a member of a minor party) that their Primary Election vote would be confined to voting in non-partisan races and on ballot measures. The new mail form does not contain that information. Voters fil ling out the form on their own, as permitted under the new law, are being misled by a faultily designed card. A party preference box in the upper right hand corner of the form offers the option; “I do not wish to indicate any affiliation," with no explanation whatsoever that the voter choosing that alter 'THE FOLLOWIN' BLAST IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE LOVIN' DONATIONS OF OUR LOYAL AMERICAN COUSINS IN “THE IRISH NORTHERN AID COMMITTEE, MAY THEIR NAMES BE BLESSED!' native will not receive a partisan ballot on Primary Day. Secretary of State Clay Myers is an ardent supporter of the Washington state “blanket hybrid" primary system initiative petition to change our traditional primary system. In conjunction with the Attorney General’s office, he appears to have drafted a mail registration form in the spirit of a system which is not the law in Oregon rather than follow the letter of our tradi tional pnmary law in this state. What can concerned citizens do? I suggest two immediate steps: (1) Write the Office of Sec retary of State, Capitol Building, Salem 97310, asking that the form be revised right now to accord with the spirit of our traditional primary law now on the books; and (2) contact your state legis lators requesting that the commit tee empowered by the past legis lature to oversee administrative rule making put machinery in mo tion to produce a mail registration form which fully informs voters of the consequences of their actions. James R. Klonoski, Chairperson Democratic Party of Oregon Letters policy The Emerald will accept and try to print all letters containing fair comment on ideas and topics of concern or interest to the University community. Because of space limitations, letters must be no more than 250 words, typed, triple-spaced, dated and signed with the person's major. No unsigned letters will be published. opinion Since the CIA coup d'etat of 1953 Iranians have been systematically terrorized by the Pahlavi regime. Torture, mass murder (15.000 were killed in the 1953 up-nsings). and finng squad executions are facts of life which Iranians have been constantly struggling against The arrest of over 4,000 people around the time of the “2500 year celebration" of Iranian monarchy marked the beginning of a calculated terror campaign. This was just the beginning! Hundreds of members of underground political organizations have been arrested since this event. Right now there are over 40,000 political prisoners in jail under severe torture. The torture has two objectives. First, to ternfy those who are fighting against the Shah’s regime into giving up their struggle. Second, to force the political prisoners to talk to reveal the names of active opposition members. Since the establishment of organized opposition to the Shah's regime, the intensity of tortures has increased. The most severe part of the torture is inflicted upon the prisoner during the 24 hours which follow his arrest: he is first subjected to whippings with electric cables, then to blows delivered by specialists in karate and judo. He then goes into a coma. Generally the hands, feet or nose are broken. The agents of Savak (the Iranian secret police) then come to procure a confession which the prisoners must sign saying that he has not been tortured and that he is well. These confessions go directly into the prisoner's file. The torture with electric rods is the most common; the shocks, without leaving a single trace completely paralyze the body. Chemical infections like cardiazol, or pulling out of fingernails are equally common. The prisoner is also submitted to intense light from huge projectors, to ultrasonic rays and to shocks to the head which cause insanity, blindness or deafness. Victims allege that methods of torture include “felacca, ' the sustained flogging of the soles of the feet, extraction of fingers and the nails, electric shock treatment to sexual organs and the thrusting of a broken bottle into the anus of prisoners suspended by their wnsts from a beam. Some prisoners are incapable of urinating because Savak agents had suspended weights from the prisoners testicles. Savak also has the grim distinction of having invented an instrument of torture which victims call the "hot table,” an iron frame, rather like a bed frame, covered with wire mesh which is electncalty heated until it becomes red hot., (the descnption of torture methods documented in Le Monde February 12, 1972, and the Sunday Times, January 19, 1975). In the past several years the Shah s attempts to create an atmosphere of terror inside the pnsons has been a failure. The prison confinements, however oppressive, still provided an opportunity for the political prisoners to educate one another. Even the severe methods of torture could not stop the political prisoners from continuing their struggle from within the pnsons. Many of the pnsoners who managed to leave the pnsons later joined the underground resistance organizations. The Shah and his agents are now intensifying their attempts to suppressing the growing struggle of the Iranian people On January 1, 1976, ten Iranians were sentenced to death. In May, 1975, nine people were shot to death by a firing squad The 10 Iranian pnsoners have been forced to challenge the competence of the military tribunal. Depnved of defense during the pre-trail period, they can only be assisted in the , court by military officials who mostly come up with written conclusions, appearing in files to which access is not authorized. The debates are carried out without heanng one single witness and no document is presented. The 'files'' seem to have been made up by the "confessions” obtained by Savak. It is in that kind of situation that the ten Iranians are announced to be sentenced to death by a finng squad. Ismet Guchan, for the Iranian Students Association - U.S.
