Iran to Obama: be quiet about our humane rights violations, please

That's roughly the message sent by Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hasan Qashqavi, to President Obama when the latter commented on the recent incarceration of American-Iranian reporter Roxana Saberi, charged with "spying", by saying he was "gravely concerned" about her safety and well-being, and that he was confident she wasn't involved in any espionage.

Ms. Saberi, who won the Miss North Dakota Pageant in 1997 (and rather deservedly so, I must add), was originally arrested in Iran for "working without press credentials". Yes, because experienced reporters are always forgetting the one thing that keeps them alive in hellholes like Iran, their press credentials. She was later charged with spying for the United States – despite there being absolutely no evidence whatsoever for this claim – and was therefore convicted in a one-day trial behind closed doors to eight years in jail. And all this, before anyone even learned the details.

Well, it is Iran. I suppose we should be happy she wasn't shot or tortured or beheaded. (Or is the Islamic fundamentalist reign mellower in Iran than in Afghanistan? I mix them up. So sorry. Not.)

Obama said Sunday he was "gravely concerned" about the safety and well-being of Saberi and was confident she wasn't involved in espionage, sparking a response from Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hasan Qashqavi.

"I advise those who studied law not to comment on a case without seeing its context," Qashqavi told reporters during his weekly press briefing Monday.

Obama studied law at Harvard University and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago before becoming president.

Good thing the details were available then. Oh, waaaiiiit ...

Is this Hasan Qashqavi really arrogant and deluded enough to presume to decide what the President of the United States can and cannot say? But then, Middle-Eastern governments have always had the knack for PR ...

So an (assuredly) innocent reporter was arrested, charged with silly accusations and now faces eight freakin' years in a demented country's demented jail. ... Yeah, that sounds about right for Iran and that region.