Cabinet's Family Trip to Saudi, While the Quake Victims Suffer

Seldom do you come across a government who cares so little about its own and yet places such high priority on someone else's cause. Saturday's devastating earthquake in NW Iran, was another manifestation of such disregard for the people of Iran by the Islamic Republic.

Iran's state controlled television simply ignored the news about the earthquake and carried on with its normal programming. People were mostly alerted about the earth quake via the social media and foreign satellite TV stations. Worse still just to add salt to injury, the IR state TV, in complete indifference to the plight of its citizens in Azerbaijan, started to show one of its few cheap tasteless comedy programs, Khandeh Bazaar - Laughter Bazaar.

Iranians gritted their teeth and whined that had the devastation taken place in Gaza or Lebanon, the state TV would be showing their suffering non-stop.

The fury and backlash was such that even the hand selected and pre-approved MPs for Azerbaijan voiced their anger at the shameless state TV and demanded an apology.

Only one day after the earthquake and while citizens were waiting to be rescued from under the rubble, Ahmadinejad and several of his ministers packed their bags, not to go to the quake zone but to Saudi Arabia, with some ministers like Science Minister and the Guidance Minister taking their family and relatives along with them too for presumably some fun and shopping.

The usual protocol at times like this by other heads of the state, is to rush to the disaster areas and be with their people even if its just for symbolic purposes. Even if they are in middle of a foreign trip, they would cancel their arrangements and rush back home.

Included in this untimely cabinet trip to Saudi, is the Minister for Roads and Housing, Ali Nikzad. One would think someone in charge of Roads and Housing would be the most required official to be on the scene and evaluate the damage, especially if the minister himself is born in Ardebil and Azerbaijani himself.

This disaster once again shows that the people ruling Iran today are nothing but foreign occupiers, alien to our history and to our culture and apathetic to the suffering of our people. No wonder the post-election protesters were chanting "Neither Gaza Nor Lebanon, I Die Only for Iran"