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Canada Slams Dialogue With Iran As 'A Farce'

Reuters-World News
Aug 31, 2004
http://www.reuters.com/locales/c_newsArticle.jsp?type=topNews&localeKey=en_CA&storyID=6113401

BRUSSELS -- Canada's foreign minister slammed Tehran on Tuesday for turning a dialogue over a Canadian citizen who died in Iranian custody into "a farce," but added that unilateral sanctions would probably not be effective.

Pierre Pettigrew also said there was no improvement in the human rights situation in Iran, and that Canada may press its allies to consider joint pressure on Tehran.

The Canadian government has accused Iran's hardline courts of covering up the true circumstances of Iranian-born photographer Zahra Kazemi's death last year in order to protect senior judiciary officials implicated in her murder.

"We've tried dialogue with the Iranian government but it has turned into a farce, this situation around Madame Kazemi," Pettigrew told reporters after meeting Belgian Foreign Minister Karl de Gucht.

"Certainly we are sharing our outrage at the way the Iranian government and the judiciary system has treated this citizen. We lose no opportunity to raise it."

"What we want is to know what has happened in that jail, we've asked for the body to be returned to Canada so that we could autopsy it. They say it's an accident, that she fell. Well, we'll know. When you have the body you know those things," he added.

Kazemi, 54, was arrested in June 2003 for taking photographs of Evin prison, where dozens of political dissidents are held. After three days of interrogation she was taken to a military hospital where she slipped into a coma and died.

In July this year Iran's judiciary acquitted an intelligence agent charged with killing Kazemi in prison and now says she died accidentally by fainting and knocking her head on the floor.

Ottawa has withdrawn its ambassador from Tehran in protest at Iran's handling of the case and renewed calls for Kazemi's body to be returned to Canada. Her mother says she was forced by authorities to bury her daughter in Iran last year.

BROADER APPROACH

Pettigrew appeared to rule out unilateral sanctions against Tehran by Ottawa, saying they would not go very far, but hinted at a broader coordinated approach.

"I believe that action with our colleagues, either in the United Nations or elsewhere, in terms of resolutions, might be important," he said, although he expressed disappointment at attempts by the European Union to press Iran on human rights.

"Europeans have been very engaged in the dialogue with Iran. I don't think it has improved in any way the situation of human rights in that country, so we are comparing notes at this time," he said.

Iranian human rights lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi is representing Kazemi's family, and Pettigrew hoped her involvement may force the Iranian authorities to take the case more seriously.

"Certainly Madame Ebadi is going to appeal, and we hope very much that that trial will not be the farce that the first trial was," he said.

Ebadi's team were outraged when the court investigating Kazemi's case refused to call witnesses or hear evidence which they said would shed light on the circumstances of her death.
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[Spenta]

[redemption]

This Canadia Government is incapable of doing a damn thing - they are just like BIG 3 and don't give a damn about their citizens being killed by Mullah murderes!!!!

Stephan - move to United States and lobby US - forget the Canadian Government.!!!!
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