One Went Missing, One Will Face a Firing Squad Monday

The U.S. media have been fixated on yet another white, brunette young woman. This one went missing after going out for a marathon run near Atlanta, Georgia. A clump of hair and discarded sweats were found in the woods. Fox’s Greta Van Susteran quizzed former L.A. detective Mark Fuhrmann and medical examiner Michael Baden on the scant clues. Fox’s Bill O’Reilly devoted half his Friday show to the lost young Caucasian bride-to-be.

Only the local police, who for unstated reasons called off the search early yesterday — and Keith Olbermann, who questioned her mental stability and noted how her eyes bugged out in all the photos — seemed to have a clue. This morning, Jennifer Wilbanks turned up safe. She’d run away. (More below.)

Thousands of miles away, another young woman — unknown to U.S. media — faces a firing squad on Monday. There is no photo of her, and only scant publicity. But her story, which includes imprisonment and rape, is vastly more compelling and time-critical (How to help in comments!):
First, a word for those of you who do not live in the U.S.: It is impossible to describe to you adequately the amount of time and resources that U.S. media devoted to Jennifer Wilbanks. CNN, MSNBC, FOX News, the major networks, newspapers — all the media — gave constant updates, interviews with every person who’d ever known this woman, and constant analyses with “experts” on criminal investigations from the FBI, police, and medical examiners’ departments.

She is a white, middle-class brunette bride-to-be, and her fiance looked, on television, slightly suspicious. And those are the key factors — like the Laci Peterson saga — that made her story a “hit” on television. And those maddening factors are what drive the Americans who frequent this blog away from television.

I turned to CNN at 9AM PDT. It is now 9:37 AM and, even though she’s been found, this is the only story reported in the last half-hour by CNN.

A Word About Missing Persons:

There are thousands and thousands of other missing people in this country alone. Look at the photos of missing people in Manhattan alone: Stephanie Servio, Last seen 07/03/04, Manhattan (black); Veronica Aguires, Last Seen 12/22/03, Manhattan (Hispanic); Rafine Caballero, Last seen 04/15/04, Manhattan (Hispanic), Lucia Casa, Last seen 04/15/04, Manhattan (Hispanic), and on and on. The police department asks that their photos not be reproduced elsewhere.

Then, as we learned last night from David Brancaccio on PBS’s NOW, the family of Haj Ali — the famous man in the hood — searched for him after he went missing. Haj’s family went to Abu Ghraib and, when they asked if he were a prisoner, were told by U.S. authorities that no, he was not at Abu Ghraib. One can only imagine his family’s suffering, not knowing what had become of him until his abrupt release from Abu Ghraib.

Did we ever hear a word about the Ali family’s search? Or about the search for Stephanie, Veronica, Rafine, or Lucia? Of course not.

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From Amnesty International UK — the story the U.S. press ignores –about a 21-year-old woman who was tortured and then confessed to murdering her husband when she was 15 and who subsequently was raped in prison, giving birth to a child, now a toddler:

Yemen: Young mother faces execution for crime committed when 16

The Yemen Times reports that “Mrs. Shadha Mohammad Nasser, a lawyer at the supreme court appealed, on behalf of Amina Ali Abduladif suspected of killing her husband Hizam Hassan Miqa’el, to the President and Chairman of the Supreme Judiciary Council to repeal the execution of the suspect.”

The total number of news stories after a Google News search: Two. Both from The Yemen Times.

Compare that to the number of stories about Ms. Wilbanks:

What might we do for Amina? I didn’t find an “action” suggestion at the UK Amnesty International site.