Sun front page – severed head alert

So please tell us snafu if it is consistent to let Israeli/Australians back into the country that have seen military service in the occupied territories? They have blood on their hands as well and it’s State sponsored. There are literally thousands of young Australians returning to Australia after doing Israeli military service. What is the difference?

My answer? I despise religion so those who go abroad to fight on religious grounds shouldn’t be allowed back anyway, but I can’t see that idea being very popular with anybody with a smattering of Hebrew!
A difference between those doing Israeli military service and fighting in a civil war on the irregular side – I guess that the Israeli trained soldiers are, well, trained and disciplined and (hopefully) not expected to go off on a one way suicide mission afterwards, although it would appear that both sides have been brainwashed into thinking that they need to fight for their theological mindset rather than what is right for peace and their community.

So back to the Australian Muslim boy and the Australian government – what is happening?

A law stopping people is one thing, actually carrying out such an act might be racially unworkable (as in ‘you are white so you can leave the country…but you are brown-skinned and a Muslim, so you can’t!‘). Since you cannot even trust a return ticket I would guess that a government might have felt better about letting potential freedom fighters/terrorists/mercenaries/ordinary citizens leave if they had their family with them…

So please tell us, Student Pilot, what does the Australian government propose to do about this child and his parents? I’m guessing that it might have something to do with waiting until they turn up in a country with an extradition treaty with Australia?

So please tell us snafu if it is consistent to let Israeli/Australians back into the country that have seen military service in the occupied territories? They have blood on their hands as well and it’s State sponsored. There are literally thousands of young Australians returning to Australia after doing Israeli military service. What is the difference?

As usual, you twist and turn, trying to get away from the fact that you attach more importance to the existence of the photo than you have regard for the child’s wellbeing.

The child’s wellbeing… What can we do about it? We could send a delegation to the Syrian embassy and demand that they do something, or write to our MP’s and make similar demands. But I am at a loss as to what YOU ALL think we can do, sitting behind our screens, mainly in Britain, so why not enlighten us as to what we must do.

So just sit back, and make no comment on it.

…

Well, good for you; about 25 years ago, I was asked to take photos of a stillborn child, in his coffin, or the mother, due to the hospital’s complete disinterest, would have had nothing by which to remember him, which I did, so keep your lectures to yourself.

Actually done that too, as a favour to a neighbour. Was rushed in and out in under a minute; got the impression that the staff would like us to keep quiet about it, but that was over fifteen years ago.
My ‘lecture’ was more to illustrate that one news group had a modicum of concern about exposing a member of staff to a potentially grisly situation, whereas another seems happy to spread it to the world.

I would expect that it had to pass inspection by the newspaper’s legal team.

You would, wouldn’t you…

This image is being used with the frenzied chest beating and Muslim bashing by Oz conservative politics to tighten the laws concerning Australians going over seas to fight as “Terrorists” in various flashpoints round the world. Since the Boar war people have been leaving the shores of Australia to fight other peoples wars. Will the Oz Government be stopping young Jewish Australians from going back to fight in another countries military (Israel) in an illegal invasion and occupation force?
One mans freedom fighter is another mans terrorist, both come as volunteers and State sponsored mercenaries.

A law stopping people is one thing, actually carrying out such an act might be racially unworkable (as in ‘you are white so you can leave the country…but you are brown-skinned and a Muslim, so you can’t!‘). Since you cannot even trust a return ticket I would guess that a government might have felt better about letting potential freedom fighters/terrorists/mercenaries/ordinary citizens leave if they had their family with them…

So please tell us, Student Pilot, what does the Australian government propose to do about this child and his parents? I’m guessing that it might have something to do with waiting until they turn up in a country with an extradition treaty with Australia?

RM still a sensationalist then ?

Anything that gets his product talked about is fine by him. Was it the picture or the front page that was shown?

In my mind these people are just giving these Muslim fanatics what they crave the publicity to draw more fighter’s to their twisted idea of how the world should be, what makes me laugh is all these so called fighter’s fighting for their cause don not realise that if these Muslim jihadists get their way and the world does become a Muslim world ? all the things they take for granted will be binned in an instant from their freedom of speech to the clothes they wear.

To be fair the picture, as I understand it, was not released by any Jihadi PR department but taken from social media.

Hi All,
Snafu,
RM still a sensationalist then ? In my mind these people are just giving these Muslim fanatics what they crave the publicity to draw more fighter’s to their twisted idea of how the world should be, what makes me laugh is all these so called fighter’s fighting for their cause don not realise that if these Muslim jihadists get their way and the world does become a Muslim world ? all the things they take for granted will be binned in an instant from their freedom of speech to the clothes they wear.
Student Pilot,
They should let them go and fight as all country’s should and if they happen to survive just refuse the lot of them re-entry simple. When they come home crying it wasn’t like they expected or I was being stupid or as many of their Family’s claim they were brainwashed, they should keep them at the airport and put them on the first flight back. After all these so called fighters no matter what cause they are fighting for are no more than mercenaries paid or not.
I f you choose to leave a country you have been brought up in and are a citizen of, Or you have been so graciously given sanctuary in while your country has it’s problems if you want to shoot weapons in a war then join the Army/Air force or Navy. Also don’t suppose you should be welcomed back with open arms and want to return to the life you knew, that life vanished the moment you pissed off abroad to pick up a gun.

Geoff.

This image is being used with the frenzied chest beating and Muslim bashing by Oz conservative politics to tighten the laws concerning Australians going over seas to fight as “Terrorists” in various flashpoints round the world. Since the Boar war people have been leaving the shores of Australia to fight other peoples wars. Will the Oz Government be stopping young Jewish Australians from going back to fight in another countries military (Israel) in an illegal invasion and occupation force?
One mans freedom fighter is another mans terrorist, both come as volunteers and State sponsored mercenaries.

Ah, Edgar. You have children? Would you have been happy for them to have seen that picture when they were in junior school, or younger?…

As usual, you twist and turn, trying to get away from the fact that you attach more importance to the existence of the photo than you have regard for the child’s wellbeing.

There is little anyone can do about the boy in Syria

So just sit back, and make no comment on it.

Just a thought but several years ago I was given a job with the possibility of going into a morgue

Well, good for you; about 25 years ago, I was asked to take photos of a stillborn child, in his coffin, or the mother, due to the hospital’s complete disinterest, would have had nothing by which to remember him, which I did, so keep your lectures to yourself.

Do you think any preparation was done for that images appearance on the Sun’s front page, about whether everyone was ready to view it?

I would expect that it had to pass inspection by the newspaper’s legal team.

Remember this one that was in he Observer amongst others.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4528745.stm

I remember the picture and, whilst I don’t remember it being on the front page I do remember it being on placards in the run up to the invasion in 2003. And I agree with its photographer, Ken Jarecke, when he said that if he didn’t show this to the world then people like his mother would think it was like it is in the movies. But apparently it didn’t make the papers in America – too shocking.

Or the naked young girl burnt by Napalm in Vietnam, again showing the horror of war and again published in many newspapers of the time… Again showing that when you as a country to war, the innocents are always the first to suffer.

Indeed, another shocking image that nearly didn’t get published because of its shocking nature; but double Pulitzer winner Horst Faas fought for it and Phan Thi Kim Phuc became more than just another victim of a lost war, but the subject of Nick Ut’s Pulitzer prize. (Nixon doubted that pictures authenticity, privately claiming it was staged in an attempt to turn the American public further against what was happening then in Vietnam.) Faas also battled for another, earlier subsequent Pulitzer winning but no less shocking picture, by Eddie Adams, of a Vietnamese police chief executing a Vietcong suspect with a pistol in 1968.

For me the difference between these images and the one on the Sun’s front page is that we (well, most of us) know them, we know that they were featured in newspapers and were uncensored when used (Phan Thi Kim Phuc’s image might be cropped to above her waist though); they are there for us to see the horror as it happened when the camera’s shutter clicked – they do not use strips to hide the complete face of the subjects, we cannot see the terror of the decapitated soldier nor the eyes of the child (it is obviously not about the child’s identity, since both his parents have been named and other distinguishing marks on his face can be seen). I have already said that the picture should be seen – just not on the front page.

Tony, Charlie & CD, I’d like to point out that it’s refreshing to see that you obviously care more about a blatant case of child abuse than the behaviour of something that has only a passing resemblance to a newspaper, and a retail outlet. At least you seem to have your priorities in the right order.

Ah, Edgar. You have children? Would you have been happy for them to have seen that picture when they were in junior school, or younger?

There is little anyone can do about the boy in Syria at the moment, other than maybe sending in the Australian SAS to retrieve him – and we all know that is not going to happen. If he and his parents make it out alive then we can all demand that the family is broken up to salve our collective consciences over the kid being abused by being given a head to hold (assuming he wasn’t the one to actually chop it off), but if that is what fits your brief of child abuse how about children being able to view that front page? We all know that there are some dreadful parents out there who will not give a damn about what their kids see (or can view on the net), but there are others who do care and would rather not have their hand forced by walking into Tesco and coming face to face with death porn.

Just a thought but several years ago I was given a job with the possibility of going into a morgue and viewing a dead body; all sorts of forms were given to me to sign, clearing my employer of responsibility should my fragile mindset not take viewing the corpse and I had to fill in something like a health and safety checklist explaining what I could and should do if I felt uneasy in the presence of the cadaver. As it happened the deceased was taken away by the funeral people about an hour before I was due there – somebody else’s bad timing fortunately, not mine. Do you think any preparation was done for that images appearance on the Sun’s front page, about whether everyone was ready to view it? Me neither.

Why all the news paper snobbery ? Just because you choose to read a particular paper doesn’t mean your Thick/Less Intelligent than others etc.etc.

Quite correct, although that doesn’t explain Sport readers…;o)

What I will agree on is the picture was Crass/Distasteful and Tactless, more thought really should have gone into it rather than the editor just saying ‘Yeah that’s o.k. just blur the kids face’ Having said that it was on Sky news several times ???? so if it was never published in the papers it may have been seen on a news channel also ?

Bat, who owns the Sun? And who owns Sky? I’ll give you a clue: it’s the same man, he’s not god but he’d like to be…

Hi All,
Why all the news paper snobbery ? Just because you choose to read a particular paper doesn’t mean your Thick/Less Intelligent than others etc.etc. it is surely down to personal choice end of. What I will agree on is the picture was Crass/Distasteful and Tactless, more thought really should have gone into it rather than the editor just saying ‘Yeah that’s o.k. just blur the kids face’ Having said that it was on Sky news several times ???? so if it was never published in the papers it may have been seen on a news channel also ?

Geoff.

Tony, Charlie & CD, I’d like to point out that it’s refreshing to see that you obviously care more about a blatant case of child abuse than the behaviour of something that has only a passing resemblance to a newspaper, and a retail outlet. At least you seem to have your priorities in the right order.

Lazy knee-jerk is an oxymoron isn’t it?

So if I agree with you I am massaging your ego, am I? Mmm! No, Snafu, accept the hard fact, some of us just disagree with your provocative posts. And live with it…..if your ego allows it!;)

Remember this one that was in he Observer amongst others.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4528745.stm

It was a powerful image that showed in one image the horrors of war far more than any account could ever do, if that one image made one person think again about going to war, it was worth it.

Or the naked young girl burnt by Napalm in Vietnam, again showing the horror of war and again published in many newspapers of the time… Again showing that when you as a country to war, the innocents are always the first to suffer.

Did the image disturb you or were you worried that it may disturb any children that saw it?

I’m afraid I am beyond being shocked by such imagery, the fact that national or local management didn’t flag it up nor the staff on the shop floor (although I’ve been told that they find it easier if they don’t shake the tree) is more shocking. That and the ignorant morons at the Sun who decided to subject anyone who glanced in its direction to their death porn.

What is disturbing for me is the father and son that are the subject of the ‘article’; what kind of hatred would lead a father to voluntarily take his family into a war-zone and expose his son to the horrors of war at such an impressionable age? And that is the crux of the matter really, children are naturally impressionable and don’t get ‘shocked’ by normality, whatever that ‘normality’ actually is.

What kind of hatred? Religious hatred.
Why? Because their religion tells them they go to paradise when they die, and he wants to take his son with him when he goes?
The child, admittedly, does not look all that happy to be holding the head but I’d guess the Syrian soldier would wish he was also somewhere else – and alive. I can spout all those things about it being different out there for kids, different influences and experiences but the boy was from Australia and I guess they don’t do any more posing with severed human heads down under than we do.
Personally I don’t want my eight and nearly two year old children to be subjected to that sort of imagery at all, certainly not on the front page of a newspaper and definitely not in a supermarket.

This is one of the great problems with religion. Have you ever wondered why religions seem so keen to become involved in education? You can teach children that anything is ‘normal’, even to the extent that it is right-and-proper to kill somebody that doesn’t share exactly the same religious beliefs that you have!

Strangely, when you think about all that you know about the people of the country, the Americans have the right idea when they decreed that religion should be kept out of schools. That they could be said to have replaced it with blind, unquestioned patriotism (the oath of allegiance, every day?) is another matter…

The shocking thing to me is that this sort of thing is happening in the world today; it should be in the newspapers.

Should the photograph be on the front-page? Maybe not, but is that really what should be worrying us?

The wheels on my argument might run flat when I admit that yes, these things happen and need to be illustrated: it needs to been seen to have happened or it never happened.
BUT does it need to be seen on the front page? No. If you really must draw attention to the fact that you have published a picture of it inside your paper then maybe do something similar to what the Sport does with their teasing ‘pictures inside’ bits on the front. And no, I don’t read the Sport either, or do anything more than see the front page and realise it is not going to introduce a newsworthy exclusive for the other papers to envy…

Then the target of your complaint should really be at Tesco’s for positioning the newspaper in such a position that children entering the store could view it… Not many 5 or 6 year olds read newspapers, though to be honest the Sun writes for them.
If any children do read or go through their parents copy, then if the parent deems the page unsuitable, they should remove it… the Suns target market isn’t kids, so this is just really about an unsuitable display position in your store.

Would it surprise you to learn that Tesco does not have any guidelines for the display of mainstream publications? Yes, I got onto Tesco about it.

Whilst we do have guidelines for the placement of men’s magazines near publications aimed at children, we do not believe that similar guidelines are necessary for mainstream publications like newspapers.

Then again, no newspaper has featured an image of a child holding the severed head of a soldier on their front page before.
Essentially those positions on the newspaper stand in the entrance to Tesco are owned by and used to advertise the Sun; don’t mess with the Sun.

I asked in my follow up whether they would still display the newspaper in the unlikely event that the Sun published a swear word in block capitals on its front page (no guidelines on the matter and no respect for their customers, etc), a question I asked before pondering if my query had actually gone any further up the food chain than the customer services department but after the one where I asked if Tesco would be happy to go on record admitting that they did not take any action to prevent a distressing image being displayed to children and the vulnerable on entering their stores. Strangely, again, I have not yet had a reply.

Essentially that’s right, Tony – I agree with you.

Ah ha!

The thread is designed to provoke and antagonise.

Provoke and antagonise who?

I’m guessing from your usual lazy knee-jerk that you don’t mean provoke discussion and antagonise a response, but please, carry on massaging Tonys ego – it might make John jealous…;o)

Essentially that’s right, Tony – I agree with you. The thread is designed to provoke and antagonise. And CD’s comments above are quite true.

It certainly opened the eyes of any passing children in Tesco. Let me point that out again: children. And it won’t stop anything in Syria.
But it might upset all those supermarkets and newsagents who found themselves forced to display kiddie war-porn just to satisfy some editors bloodlust.

Then the target of your complaint should really be at Tesco’s for positioning the newspaper in such a position that children entering the store could view it… Not many 5 or 6 year olds read newspapers, though to be honest the Sun writes for them.
If any children do read or go through their parents copy, then if the parent deems the page unsuitable, they should remove it… the Suns target market isn’t kids, so this is just really about an unsuitable display position in your store.

Did the image disturb you or were you worried that it may disturb any children that saw it?

What is disturbing for me is the father and son that are the subject of the ‘article’; what kind of hatred would lead a father to voluntarily take his family into a war-zone and expose his son to the horrors of war at such an impressionable age? And that is the crux of the matter really, children are naturally impressionable and don’t get ‘shocked’ by normality, whatever that ‘normality’ actually is.

This is one of the great problems with religion. Have you ever wondered why religions seem so keen to become involved in education? You can teach children that anything is ‘normal’, even to the extent that it is right-and-proper to kill somebody that doesn’t share exactly the same religious beliefs that you have!

The shocking thing to me is that this sort of thing is happening in the world today; it should be in the newspapers.

Should the photograph be on the front-page? Maybe not, but is that really what should be worrying us?

Yes, it’s such a well balanced and adult paper, on the same page…
“Exclusive. Women with UK’s biggest trout pout!”
… I rest my case.

Ok, I shall remain calm.

I do not read the Sun: never have, never will. I happened upon this particular front page prominently displayed in a Tesco. I found it offensive, but you ignored the subject of the thread and blather on about someone reading that comic! Yes, as far as I’m aware they poke fun at people with irreverent articles probably everyday but, fortunately, they don’t feature severed human heads in a child’s hands quite so frequently. I rate the paper only marginally above the Daily Star with its repeated promotion of events connected with Big Brother on what used to be its groups TV channel featuring heavily on its front page pages, rather than real news.

Still, if you want to talk about stupid exclusives in the red tops rather than a serious story go right ahead.

It certainly opened the eyes of any passing children in Tesco. Let me point that out again: children. And it won’t stop anything in Syria.
But it might upset all those supermarkets and newsagents who found themselves forced to display kiddie war-porn just to satisfy some editors bloodlust.

Ok, so you feel real proud of yourself, but let the adults talk now.

For those who must see that front page… http://resources0.news.com.au/images/2014/08/12/1227022/416376-ff242184-221f-11e4-a212-44a8a3dd312b.jpg

Yes, it’s such a well balanced and adult paper, on the same page…
“Exclusive. Women with UK’s biggest trout pout!”
… I rest my case.

It’s life, and if opening people’s eyes brings change in the world and stops these atrocities I’m all for it, unfortunately war is sanitised to the general public when it is man at his bestial worst.

It certainly opened the eyes of any passing children in Tesco. Let me point that out again: children. And it won’t stop anything in Syria.
But it might upset all those supermarkets and newsagents who found themselves forced to display kiddie war-porn just to satisfy some editors bloodlust.

Wow, someone who actually reads the sun!

Ok, so you feel real proud of yourself, but let the adults talk now.

For those who must see that front page… http://resources0.news.com.au/images/2014/08/12/1227022/416376-ff242184-221f-11e4-a212-44a8a3dd312b.jpg

I saw it the local Supermarket, amongst other papers, Why this sort of thing didn’t surprise me, is beyond me.Now, did anyone see page 3?………………:D
Jim.
Lincoln .7

Wow, someone who actually reads the sun!