Making tough choices

A friend of mine from Azerbaijan wrote the following story on her blog and it grabbed my attention as an ethical dilemma.
This is a story of a woman with Azerbaijani nationality who lives in Iran and has hard days with the local government. Her husband is arrested for defending national rights of about 30 million Azerbaijani people living in Iran; she replaces the husband in breaking iron information curtain and spreading the news to the international media about the human rights violation of Azerbaijani people living in Iran.

Once she was officially told by the Iranian government that it was illegal and she might be arrested for sharing this kind of political information with the international media.
A friend of mine who is also a journalist being aware of the thread of the Iranian government, was worrying about the fate of the woman and her 11 years old daughter and asked her not to give any information about the violations taking place in her town.
But the woman still insisted in spreading information saying that she would be doing it until she got arrested and even she was arrested, she had taught her 11 years –old daughter how to get information from the Azerbaijani activists and how to spread it and the girl would continue the parents mission anyway.

Of course, both my friend and the woman faced with an ethical dilemma making these tough decisions.

In journalist’s case it is mostly the individual versus the community problem.

Interviewing the woman who had been threaten by the government for doing it, might make a danger for her, but on the other hand the woman is an experienced and reliable resource about the Azerbaijani people problems living in Iran. If the journalist refuses to interview the woman because of the woman’s individual interests, she might harm the community which have really serious problems that need to be covered by the international media.

In the woman’s case it is mostly look like right versus right dilemma: It is right to defend your community and to share the information about the problems they face and it is also right to care of your child and to be keep silence.

I think the woman followed Kantian rules –based approach in decision making : thinking of the virtues- if I am scared of the the government and give up, I should expect from all the women in my situation in the world to do the same. At least she had virtues as Aristotle said and she preferred to follow them which I highly appreciate.
It is not easy to understand the journalist decision motivation to force her to ask the woman not to deliver news from Iran to her company any more after the thread made by the Iranian government to keep silence and not to spread information of the situation of Azerbaijani people living in Iran.
The journalist’s motivation is mostly close to utilitarian – ends-based approach: she probably assessed the problems that the woman could have faced if she still continued delivering information to the international media. If the journalist’s have approached the problem from the Kantian prospective she probably would not ask the woman to do it, as Kant insists in following the rule like – if you defend the a woman against the favor of the community you should expect from all the journalists in the world to do the same.