Are we actually getting somewhere?

President Obama expressed "alarm about the growing number of journalists silenced" in a statement released Friday, maintaining that he was especially concerned over the recent detention of U.S. journalists Roxana Saberi in Iran and Euna Lee and Laura Ling in North Korea.

"Even as the world recognizes the central and indisputable importance of press freedom, journalists find themselves in frequent peril," the president said in a White House release. "I lend my voice of support and admiration to all those brave men and women of the press who labor to expose truth and enhance accountability around the world."

President Obama also acknowledged the responsibility of journalists while recognizing World Press Freedom Day, celebrated May 3.

"It is a day in which we celebrate the indispensable role played by journalists in exposing abuses of power, while we sound the alarm about the growing number of journalists silenced by death or jail as they attempt to bring daily news to the public," the president said.

And?

What’s more alarming is Mehdi Karoubi, who is running against current Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is calling for Roxana Saberi to be released. Ahmadinejad, made no such pledge, instead stating that the justice would be swift and fair.

The North Dakota congressional delegation, in doing their part, has not stayed silent on this issue (even though the State Department seems content to let it play out as it does). Senators Byron Dorgan and Kent Conrad and Representative Earl Pomeroy have all used floor time to bring attention to the plight of Saberi, who is growing weaker and weaker in prison due to a hunger strike she has been on for going on two weeks to protest her unjust detention.

She’s going to die in there, if they don’t hurry! I wouldn’t eat the food either. You know it’s probably poisoned.

Source CNN and www.theproverbialtundra.com