Iran Focus: Ottawa, Apr. 02 Iranians residing in Canada held a rally in front of the Foreign Ministry headquarters yesterday in response to an expatriate Iranian doctors testimony which has shed new light on the 2003 state murder of Zahra Kazemi, an Iranian-Canadian photojournalist. Demonstrators who were rallied by the Committee for Defence of Human Rights in Iran called for an end to Canadas diplomatic relations with the … Rally in Canada against state murder in Iran
Iran Focus: Ottawa, Apr. 02 Iranians residing in Canada held a rally in front of the Foreign Ministry headquarters yesterday in response to an expatriate Iranian doctors testimony which has shed new light on the 2003 state murder of Zahra Kazemi, an Iranian-Canadian photojournalist. Demonstrators who were rallied by the Committee for Defence of Human Rights in Iran called for an end to Canadas diplomatic relations with the … Rally in Canada against state murder in Iran
Iran Focus: Ottawa, Apr. 02 Iranians residing in Canada held a rally in front of the Foreign Ministry headquarters yesterday in response to an expatriate Iranian doctors testimony which has shed new light on the 2003 state murder of Zahra Kazemi, an Iranian-Canadian photojournalist. Demonstrators who were rallied by the Committee for Defence of Human Rights in Iran called for an end to Canadas diplomatic relations with the … Martin says Iran must be held to account
Canadian Press: Iran must be held to account by the international community based on the strength of a doctor’s account of the injuries he found on Canadian journalist Zahra Kazemi, Prime Minister Paul Martin said Friday. “I think there’s no doubt whetheryou are talking about international courts or whether you are talking about the UN Commission on Human Rights,” he said, “I would certainly think the details of what happened to her now in the testimony that has been brought has got to make the world aware
of just what Iran is all about and that they have got to be held to account.”
Eyewitness feared retribution
The Globe and Mail: Once Dr. Shahram Azam left Iran to tell his story of how Zahra Kazemi was brutally raped and tortured inside a Tehran prison, he knew it wouldn’t take long for Iranian agents to track him down. That made his asylum request to Canada all the more urgent. “We took his case very seriously,” said a Canadian official who worked on the file. “The Iranians were almost on his track and the life of Dr. Azam was becoming highly endangered and he could not have stayed in Sweden for much longer without witness protection.” Ukraine leader confirms missile sales to Iran
NBC News: President Viktor Yushchenko confirmed Thursday that nuclear-capable cruise missiles were illegally sold to Iran and China under Ukraines previous government. In an interview with NBC News, Yushchenko offered the highest-level acknowledgement that the sales, which have alarmed the U.S. intelligence community, indeed took place. “I confirm this, though I do so with bitterness,” the president said. Step up pressure on Iran torturers
Toronto Star: Zahra Kazemi did not die in “an accident” at Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, whatever Iran’s discredited courts may claim. She was savagely beaten, tortured and raped, according to a physician who treated her as she lay dying from a brain injury. Tehran rushes weapons program
The Washington Times: The Iranian government is fast-tracking an atomic-weapons program and has allocated $2.5 billion to either buy three nuclear warheads or produce them at home, an organization of Iranian exiles claimed yesterday. The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an umbrella body of exiled opposition groups, said Tehran is speeding up efforts to build a plutonium bomb by 2007. Iran Upgrading Heavy Water Production, Exiled Group Claims
Bloomberg: Iran this year will complete a plant that can produce heavy water, another step in its efforts to defy international commitments and build atomic weapons, an exiled Iranian resistance group said. Iran is also speeding up construction of a nuclear reactor, and by 2007 will have enough enriched plutonium to make a nuclear weapon, Mohammad Mohaddessin, chairman of the National Council for Resistance in Iran’s foreign affairs committee, said at a news conference inParis today.
Canadian Who Died in Iran Was Tortured: Refugee
Reuters: A female Canadian photographer who died in Tehran two years ago after being arrested had been badly tortured and quite possibly raped, an Iranian refugee to Canada said on Thursday.The account by Shahram Azam, who said he was an emergency room doctor in Tehran’s Revolutionary Guard Hospital at the time, contradicts the official Iranian line that 54-year-old Zahra Kazemi died after she fainted and hit her head.
Kazemi’s slaying stirs calls for action on Iran
The Globe and Mail: The Conservative and New Democratic parties joined forces yesterday to demand Ottawa dramatically ratchet up diplomatic pressure on Iran after revelations that Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi was brutally rapedand tortured while in Iranian custody in 2003.
“We want the government to do what they should have done almost two years ago, which is to drop the failed approach of soft-peddling and soft diplomacy, and make tough demands,” Tory foreign affairs critic Stockwell Day said.
