Stephen Bates writes at The Guardian:
Uncharacteristic reticence from George Galloway, who has declined an invitation to appear on the BBC World Service this evening because he claims he would be “genuinely afraid” to be in the presence of its presenter, John Sweeney. The former MP claims Sweeney, who once famously lost his temper on film after being harassed by the Church of Scientology, is “now officially, probably unbalanced”. Obviously it could not possibly have anything to do with Sweeney wanting to interview Galloway about his work for Press TV, the Iranian state-sponsored channel that broadcast confessions by the regime’s opponents extracted under torture. Galloway says he has been a trenchant critic of Iran, just like he was of Saddam Hussein.
We eagerly await the broadcast of Galloway’s Press TV interview with President Ahmadinejad, in which he relentlessly interrogates the Iranian leader about the brutal and bloody suppression of the Green Movement, the rape and torture and murder of political opponents, the closure of opposition newspapers and websites, the persecution of homosexuals, the executions for “adultery,” the imprisonment of trade unionists, etc., until he is dragged away by the Revolutionary Guard, still shouting questions.
