Em março de 2012, Mohammed Merah, que se auto-intitulava um jihadista, amarrou uma câmera em seu peito para gravar o assassinato de sete pessoas na França.
O caso
Entre os dias 11 e 19 de março de 2012, Mohammed Merah, cidadão francês de descendência argelina que se auto-intitulava um jihadista, matou sete pessoas e feriu outras cinco numa série de ataques contra soldados franceses e estudantes judeus em Montauban e Toulouse. Em 22 de março, após um longo impasse, a polícia francesa matou Merah, que afirmava estar vingando a morte de crianças palestinas e protestando contra a participação da França em guerras contra muçulmanos. Merah afirmou que foi agente da al-Qaida, mas não ficou claro se de fato ele teve alguma comunicação com organizações terroristas. Uma vertente paquistanesa do Talibã confirmou que deu treinamento a Merah.
Logo após os ataques, a emissora árabe Al-Jazeera recebeu um vídeo dos assassinatos filmado por Merah, que amarrou uma câmera ao peito durante o tiroteio. Versos do Corão e músicas religiosas aparecem como trilha sonora. Familiares das vítimas pediram que não tais imagens não fossem transmitidas, o que foi reiterado pelo presidente francês Nicolas Sarkozy, que suplicou: “Peço aos diretores de todas as emissoras de televisão que possuam tais imagens para que não as transmitam em nenhuma circunstância, seja em respeito às vítimas ou à república.” Citando seu próprio código de ética, a emissora Al-Jazeera decidiu acatar o pedido argumentando que o vídeo não adicionava nenhuma informação ao caso, somente sons de tiros, gritos, e as vozes do assassino e suas vítimas. O código de ética da Al-Jazeera afirma que a emissora deve “tratar nossa audiência com respeito e cobrir qualquer assunto ou acontecimento enfocando em apresentar uma imagem clara, real e correta, além de de mostrar consideração aos sentimentos das vítimas de crimes, guerras, perseguições e desastres, e respeitar seus familiares e nossos telespectadores, assim como a privacidade individual e o decoro público.”
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To the author opinion, it is patently wrong to describe murder as “objectively offensive”. One need only look as far as the glorification of violence in nearly all commercial media to see this. It is not only depictions of it that are popular; real life footage is hungrily devoured by voyeuristic viewers as well. For example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsA9VtQ_uLg
The video has over 1,000,000 views, and an overwhelming “like” ratio. Why is it allowed? Is it because the victims are little white blobs? Is it because we cannot see their faces? They are the “bad guys” getting “what they deserve”?
This, to me, is far more disrespectful of identity and individualism than broadcasting murders. Picking and choosing which individual deserves respect undermines the entire argument to an extreme degree.
Perhaps the video related to the case study should not be aired on public television. Perhaps it should not be made available. But the reasoning behind this is inherently hypocritical, and disgusting at that.
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From my personal point of view, i think that the omision of the footage was a totally right decision.
First of all i am totally agree about citizens getting freedom of speech and the most accurate information possible about anything that is relevant to anybody. But on the other hand, i think that the murder has been cover very good, as all the details have been explain. Furthermore, the information about the arrest and death of the terrorist has been covered very accuretaly.
Why i am against the diffusion of the video? First of all, most of the victims are kids, by this i mean that they are underage, therefore under the responsability of the parents. And which mother/father wants to recreate and live again the death of their kid? I think that it is not necessary and image or sound in this case. With some written information is enough.
Secondly, i think that the video could be a source of “Inspiration” for other terrorist attacks, and therefore i think we don’t need to do more publicity about the terrorist attack. Because everybody knows that positive/negative publicity is the best way to get known and increase the followers.
Finally, i think that besides those ideas, in order to respect the victims, it should be somehting private, for respecting their privacy and honor.
In conclusion, it was an excellent idea to ban the video, and i don’t see that the political pressure was something negative, at this moment i think it was an act showing respect for the victims. Sometimes is better to avoid information, because it is not going to add more details, but just some macabracy.