Marjon Rostami, Iranian American reporter beaten in Virginia
A blog on The Virginian Pilot indicates that two weeks ago reporters Dave Forster and (Iranian American) Marjon Rostami were attacked as they drove home. They had stopped at a red light, in a crowd of at least 100 young people (mostly black) walking on the sidewalk. Rostami locked her car door. Someone threw a rock at her window. Forster got out to confront the rock-thrower, and that's when the beating began. Neither suffered grave injuries, but both were out of work for a week.
Rostami's story did not appear as news in the paper or received proper attention by the Police. The responding officer coded the incident as a "simple" assault, despite their assertions that at least 30 people had participated in the attack. When Rostami, who admits she was hysterical, tried to describe what had happened, she says the officer told her to "shut up" and get in the car. Forster and Rostami say the officer did not record any names of witnesses who stopped to help. The officer told them the attackers were "probably juveniles anyway. What are we going to do? Find their parents and tell them?"
More questions loom on why the beating of the Iranian-American reporter received such little attention in the local media or by the Police. The attacks could be racially motivated (attackers were all black) as pointed out by Bill O'Reilly of Fox News.
At The Virginian Pilot, Rostami covers Chesapeake government. She joined The Pilot in March 2010 after working at The Arizona Republic. She graduated from the University of Texas.
