London Free Press: News Section - Kazemi's son demands action

JIM BROWN, CP 2004-07-28 02:02:59
OTTAWA -- Iran's ambassador to Ottawa should be kicked out in protest over his country's failure to bring the killers of Zahra Kazemi to justice, says the son of the slain journalist. "The Iranian ambassador has nothing to do in Canada right now," Stephan Hachemi said at a news conference yesterday.

"He should be expelled. The embassy should be closed."

Hachemi made the appeal just before he was to meet Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew, who has been slow to decide on concrete action to show Ottawa's displeasure with the Iranian government in Tehran.

Canadian officials have said they are considering a range of diplomatic pressure tactics, but haven't indicated expelling ambassador Mohammad Ali Mousavi is among them.

They are, however, studying the possibility of taking the Kazemi case to the International Court of Justice at The Hague -- another demand made by Hachemi and his lawyer John Terry.

"This case is imbued with international human rights issues," said Terry. "We're talking about torture, wrongful detention, extra-judicial killing."

He acknowledged that, even if the court ruled against Iran, it has no way of forcing Tehran to abide by the ruling.

But a court case is still one of the most effective pressure tactics Pettigrew has at his disposal, said Terry.

"A decision in Canada's favour at the ICJ would be condemnation (of Iran) at the very highest level of the international judicial system."

Kazemi was arrested in June 2003 while taking photos outside Evin prison in Tehran. She died of a fractured skull and brain hemorrhage while in detention last July.

On Saturday a Tehran court cleared secret agent Mohammad Reza Aghdam Ahmadi, the sole defendant, of killing Kazemi.

In Geneva yesterday, a panel of United Nations human rights experts expressed their "profound" concern about Iranian legal proceedings in the Kazemi case.

"Many reports indicate that the proceedings did not meet international standards of fair trial because key evidence that might have incriminated judiciary officials, the prosecutor's office as well as the intelligence ministry were ignored by the court," said a UN statement.

The expert panel -- made up of specialists in free speech, torture and independent judges -- said Iranian authorities failed to ensure an open trial and the independent judiciary.

The UN experts said they fear Iranian authorities "are favouring a climate of impunity for law-enforcement officials and setting the ground for the recurrence of similar human-rights violations in the future."