UNBELIEVABLE: Watch What Happened IMMEDIATELY After Anti-Trump Iranian Director’s Statement [VIDEO]

27 Feb, 2017 by Cassy Fiano

Print this article Font size -16+

The Academy Awards were Sunday night and many Americans swore to boycott them after previous awards shows were filled with liberal preaching and Donald Trump-bashing. And, not surprisingly, there were lots of little wisecracks and jokes taking aim at the Trump administration. One of the most shocking moments, however, came after an Iranian director won an award.

Asghar Farhadi won the Best Foreign Language award, his second, for his film “The Salesman/” However, Donald Trump recently put into place an executive order banning travel from seven Muslim countries. So, Farhadi refused to attend the ceremony to accept his award as an act of protest. Iranian-American businesswoman Anousheh Ansari read a statement on his behalf instead:

“It’s a great honor to be receiving this valuable award for the second time. I would like to thank the members of the academy, my crew in Iran, my producer, Amazon, and my fellow nominees,” the statement began. “I’m sorry I’m not with you tonight. My absence is out of respect for the people of my country and those of other six nations whom have been disrespected by the inhumane law that bans entry of immigrants to the US.”

“Dividing the world into the ‘us’ and ‘our enemies’ categories creates fear,” it continued. “A deceitful justification for aggression and war. These wars prevent democracy and human rights in countries which have themselves been victims of aggression. Filmmakers can turn their cameras to capture shared human qualities and break stereotypes of various nationalities and religions. They create empathy between us and others. An empathy which we need today more than ever.”

What happened next served up a pretty high dose of irony.

Actor Dev Patel came onto the stage to introduce Sting, who was scheduled to sing “The Empty Chair/” The song is an Oscar-nominated tune from “Jim: The James Foley Story” about the journalist who was beheaded by ISIS. Sting opened the song by saying, “If I don’t have the moral courage to challenge authority… we don’t have journalism.”

So. immediately after an Iranian director had a statement read about how we don’t need to have enemies, Sting performed a song about James Foley, an innocent man brutally murdered by Islamic terrorists. And none of the celebrities there noticed the irony there? Really?