I never heard anything more ridiculous than the claim made by Al-Jazeera's Dima Khatib (in the story headlined 'Al-Jazeera's one-woman show', January 25) that 'Beijing has realised that the old times of controlling everything within China are gone. The American media don't reflect the view of what is happening in China'.
What planet has this woman been on? What, pray, does she think China did last year if not suppress the news on Sars? Didn't the 1989 Tiananmen massacre take place because Beijing always wants to control everything? Has she got the true picture of China's treatment of her fellow Muslims in Xinjiang?
What does she think the BBC, the American and other western media have been reporting out of China if not the facts on what's really going on in that communist country? Haven't we, in the free world, been able to learn what's happening in that country, thanks to the efforts of the western media and not a controlled Arab one? Does Khatib think by that denigrating the world's free media, she will make Al-Jazeera look credible? Either she's a very ignorant woman or she likes making jokes.
Instead of writing a flatteringly skewed profile, why didn't reporter Annemarie Evans get Khatib's views on Hong Kong, where women not only don't knuckle under an oppressive patriarchy and don't cover their heads, but are free to wear their hair loose and colour it any shade?
Finally, could Khatib function as a journalist in her own country, or any other Muslim one, if she didn't have a husband around to prop her up? She should learn about true liberty from us here in free Asia and not go about making stupid blanket statements about freedom of the press - of which she obviously knows nothing.
RENATA LOPEZ, Lantau
