is Iran more free than Australia?

[winterbadger]

A deliberately provocative suggestion, but one could understand thinking that from today's headlines.

Flight ban for anti-Bush T-shirt

A passenger barred from a Qantas airlines flight for wearing a T-shirt depicting US President George Bush as a terrorist has threatened legal action. ... The T-shift features an image of President George W Bush, along with the slogan "World's Number One Terrorist". ... A Qantas spokesman defended the airline's decision, saying: "Whether made verbally or on a T-shirt, comments with the potential to offend other customers or threaten the security of a Qantas group aircraft will not be tolerated". [How does a shirt 'threaten the security of an aircraft'?]

Iranian cleric attacks president

Senior Iranian dissident cleric, Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, has attacked President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over nuclear issues and the economy. ... The grand ayatollah complained that people kept on shouting slogans about nuclear rights, but he asked: "Don't we have other rights too?"

It was a pointed reference to concerns about diminishing freedom of speech in Iran under Mr Ahmadinejad.

Comments

[candlelight1228.livejournal.com]

Maybe but I like the taste of Dasani and a few others. People tell me you can't taste water but if you drink enough of it you can. I remember when I was a kid going to my parents cabin in the mountains and the water would taste like Chlorine. We found out they put that in the water to cleanse it. I prefered bottled water since. And btw, I tend to just fill the water bottles with filtered water from the tap (we have a filtering system on it). But that's my point I can't walk into the airport with one of those. It just upsets me cause I am use to having certain freedoms from flying a lot before 9/11 and now all the new restrictions are a complete pain! Some of it I seriously wonder about....