The secretary for Iran’s National Security Council Saeed Jalili recently said that “Every ‎country has its own way for attaining democracy.” This assertion is of course correct to a ‎large extent. For example take the criticism that a journalist, an intellectual or a political ‎personality raises regarding the views of a president. He will be treated differently based ‎on the democracy that he lives in.‎

Democracy in Uzbekistan. The dissident is arrested and then a democratic vote is taken ‎among the ten interrogators from the security agency. Nine democratically vote against ‎the arrested dissident. The tenth interrogator who did not vote against the dissident is then ‎democratically boiled in water.‎

Democracy in Cuba. Supporters of Fidel and Raul Castro organize a one million man ‎democratic demonstration against a dissident and call for the punishment of the American ‎spies. But they fail to find him because he disappeared thirty minutes after criticizing ‎Fidel Castro and there remains no trace of his whereabouts.‎

Democracy in France. The views of anybody who criticizes the president are published in ‎the media, but nobody pays any attention because his views are no different from those of ‎other writers.‎

Democracy in Pakistan. The person whose views are different from that of the president ‎zealously announces his views in public gathering. Thousands support him. A bomb then ‎explodes and some people are killed. But the explosion has nothing to do with the ‎criticism and is in fact a normal explosion in the country.‎

Democracy in Zimbabwe. An opposition personality speaks out against the government ‎Mugabe. A few hours later, he is democratically swallowed by a lion.‎

Russian Democracy. A journalist opponent of Putin writes something against him in the ‎newspapers. After a week, the writer who had gotten tired of Russian democracy ‎completely accidentally but democratically throws himself off a ten story building and ‎dies.‎

American Democracy. A journalist supporting Bush writes an article in the New York ‎Times supporting him. His wife sues for divorce. The newspaper loses its readers after a ‎hundred years and the journalist is lost from the world of journalism forever.‎

Iranian Democracy. A journalist writes an article against the nuclear policies of the ‎president. The desk editor of the newspaper asks the writer to cut the piece by ten ‎percent. When the article arrives at the desk of the chief editor, he too asks for another 10 ‎percent cut. The article is then sent to the layout editor, who after reading the article cuts ‎another 10 percent of the story. When the makeup editor of the paper gets the story, he ‎cuts another 10 percent of the piece to protect his job. The next day when the newspaper ‎is issued, the writer dissident picks up a copy and discovers that a story about the role of ‎oil in the Middle East was published under his name. He tries hard, but fails to remember ‎when he actually wrote the oil article.‎