Iran censors media coverage of Kazemi trial

CREDIT: Canadian Press
ANGRY: Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham, right, at news conference Wednesday with Stephan Hashemi, son of Canadian journalist Zahra Kazemi, who died in Iranian custody.
TEHRAN, Iran - A hardline prosecutor has ordered Iranian newspapers to censor parts of the trial of a secret agent accused of murdering an Iranian-Canadian photojournalist, journalists said Monday.
Several Iranian reporters complained Monday to a spokesman for a reformist faction of Iran's governing establishment that Tehran prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi had called their offices telling them not to report on parts of the trial that included allegations against government hardliners. The trial ended abruptly on Sunday
One journalist said Mortazavi called him Sunday to say: "`It's in your interest to consider the murder trial over and avoid publishing things that you should not.'''
Hardliners in Iran's Islamic government were angered after a legal team representing the mother of slain photojournalist Zahra Kazemi accused prison official Mohammad Bakhshi of inflicting the fatal blow to Kazemi, and accused the hardline judiciary of illegally detaining her.
Most Iranian newspapers have not published the accusations against either Bakhshi or the prosecution.
"I was afraid to publicly put this to you during the press conference because I was afraid of possible punishment from Mortazavi,'' one of the journalists told the reformist spokesman, Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, after his weekly news conference Monday.
Ramezanzadeh said imposing such restrictions on newspapers was illegal.
"Restricting approved freedoms is against the constitution,'' he said, although it was unclear what the reformers could do about it.
The judiciary ordered two reformist publications to shut down Saturday, when the trial opened. A former judge, Mortazavi is widely seen as the man behind the closure of more than 100 pro-democracy publications in the last four years.
Ramezanzadeh denounced the judiciary for closing down newspapers and said judiciary actions were effectively discrediting the Islamic Republic.
"The government strongly deplores this. The government faces issues ... (to which) it can't respond at the international level or convince the public opinion ... one should not play with the fate of the country,'' Ramezanzadeh told reporters.
The agent charged with killing Kazemi, Mohammad Reza Aghdam Ahmadi, pleaded not guilty Saturday. After initially barring foreign observers, several, including Canadian Ambassador Philip MacKinnon and other diplomats, were allowed to attended the session.
But on Sunday they blocked from entering the courtroom and the trial was abruptly ended, with the court saying it would issue a verdict at an unspecified later date.
MacKinnon was left standing in the sun outside the courthouse for more than 90 minutes as proceedings continued inside. "I am disappointed but not surprised by this flagrant denial of due process,'' MacKinnon, who has been called home by Ottawa, said in a telephone interview with the Toronto Star.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, who leads a four-member legal team representing Kazemi's mother, walked out of the courtroom in protest and threatened to take the case to international organizations.
Abdolfattah Soltani, another member of Ebadi's team, said it was possible that Mortazavi himself was also a suspect.
The Canadian government has also raised the prospect of Mortazavi's involvement, and reformists have accused him of a coverup. The bill of indictment, which has cleared Bakhshi of any wrongdoing and implicated Ahmadi in the murder, was prepared by the hardline Tehran Prosecutor's Office.
Kazemi, a Montreal-based Canadian freelance journalist of Iranian origin, died July 10, 2003, while in detention for taking photographs outside a Tehran prison during student-led protests against the government.
Iranian authorities initially said Kazemi died of a stroke but a presidential committee later found that she died of a fractured skull and brain hemorrhage from a blow to the head.
The European Union's presidency expressed concern Sunday about the conclusion of the trial "in a very short time and in a way that does not do justice to the severity of the case and the circumstances under which Mrs. Kazemi died.''
Reporters Without Borders accused the court of "cynicism and hypocrisy'' and called on the European Community to impose tough sanctions on Iran to punish it for its "repeated violations of human rights.''
"The trial in the alleged murder of Zahra Kazemi was a test for the Iranian regime, unanimously condemned by international human rights organizations.'' the organization said in a statement.
"In transforming this trial into a masquerade of justice, Iranian authorities were once more discredited and deserve to be sanctioned,'' it said.