BRUTALISED IRANIAN-CANADIAN PHOTOJOURNALIST DIED IN HOSPITAL
ROME 12 July (IPS) The Association of Iranian Journalists Abroad (AIJA), in a fax to the leader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i, protested vigorously to the death of Ms. Zahra Kazemi, an Iranian-born Canadian photo-journalist.
Ms. Kazemi, 54, a free lance photographer covering for the Montreal-based "Recto Verso" and the London-based "Camera Press Agency", had been arrested on 23 June in Tehran while taking pictures near the notorious Evin prison and taken to an undisclosed prison, where, according to informed sources, she had been beaten to death, accused of espionage.
Confirming the death, the Director General of the press and foreign media department of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, Mohammad Hoseyn Khoshvaqt, on Saturday said "the hospitalised Iranian photographer and reporter, Zahra Kazemi, 54, passed away Friday night as a result of brain stroke".
"Kazemi, introducing herself as an Iranian national, was authorised to take photos and prepare reports on the recent university unrests as a representative of the English "Camera Press" institute", Mr. Khoshvaqt added, quoted by the official news agency IRNA, keeping silence that she had been arrested and beaten up.
According to the official, the victim complained of a headache while being interrogated at the Information (Intelligence) Ministry, after being detained by Evin prison’s guards "who treated her as an Iranian national, since she had produced Iranian passport".
"The AIJA accuses you as the sole responsible of the death of our colleague, Ms. Zahra Kazemi, as not only you are the commander of all the Armed Forces of Islamic Republic, but also one that directly controls the pressure groups and rogue plainclothesmen and their prisons", the Rome-based Association said in a fax to Mr. Khameneh'i.
The Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF, or Reporters Without Borders) for its part in a statement says it hold the Iranian authorities as "responsible" for the death of Ms. Kazemi, "having used arbitrary procedures for her arrest in the one hand and doing nothing to provide her necessary medical cares".
Canada has urged Iranian authorities to investigate Ms. Kazemi’s case, particularly allegations that she had been beaten while in custody.
According to newspaper reports, Ms. Kazemi was grabbed by plainclothes after taking photographs of the Elvin prison facility in northern Tehran.
Canadian officials said they were unsure of what, exactly, happened to Kazemi after she was taken into custody, but they know she was admitted to hospital under mysterious circumstances two days later.
Her family alleges Kazemi slipped into a coma with a cerebral hemorrhage suffered during a violent interrogation.
The Canadian Foreign Affairs Department said it learned of the arrest on Monday, when Kazemi's mother contacted the Canadian embassy in Iran.
"We have asked the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to investigate and report to us as soon as possible about the circumstances surrounding Kazemi's being taken into detention, and what might have taken place during the detention to require being taken to hospital for urgent medical reasons", a Department’s spokesman said, adding that no reply had been received as of Wednesday afternoon to Canada's request for information.
While Canadian consular officials in the Iranian capital are trying to confirm Kazemi's condition, friends who visited her in the Baqiatollah Hospital Tuesday said she remains unconscious with severe cuts and bruises on her face and head.
Consular officials visited Kazemi in hospital Tuesday, but were kept too far from the patient to properly assess her condition.
Kazemi was born in Iran but later immigrated to Montreal. Her son, Stephen Hachemi, who is in Montreal said he is convinced his mother was assaulted, but discounts suggestions she was involved in espionage.
"Spying? No, she's not spying", Hachemi told the "
National Post". "She does the same thing that every journalist does. She takes pictures of what's going on"."The country is living through nighttime upheavals that are ideal for photographers," she wrote, describing the anti-government student protests that engulfed the capital, sparking mass roundups and the detention of numerous journalists by security forces.
At least 17 journalists are believed to still be in custody following a security clampdown after the student protests.
Meanwhile, the rights group Amnesty International expressed concern over the arrest of three student activists in Iran earlier this week.
The three students activists, Reza Ameri Nassab, Ali Moqtadari and Arash Hashemi of the Office to Consolidate Unity (OCU) were detained on Wednesday just minutes after they had held a press conference condemning the Islamic republic for banning events to mark the fourth anniversary of bloody student clashes with security forces.
Denouncing the arrests, Amnesty International said the trio "may have been targeted solely for the peaceful expression of their political views".
"During the press conference they criticized restrictions on freedom of expression and association in Iran. They were reported to have been forced to the ground and thrown into three separate vehicles and taken to an unknown destination", Amnesty said, adding that the authorities have confirmed the arrest of up to 4,000 demonstrators in Iran since June 11 in the latest wave of student protests, and that some 2,000 may remain in detention without charge or trial.
But students and other independent sources say the number of protesters detained is more than 8.000, with a hundred abducted, and placed in undisclosed prisons controlled by the ruling conservatives.
"Amnesty International considers them prisoners of conscience and calls for their immediate and unconditional release. Amnesty International also calls for anyone charged with a recognisable criminal offence to be given prompt fair trial.
"The authorities should take immediate measures to ensure that student activists and peaceful demonstrators are treated in accordance with international human rights standards", the statement added. ENDS JOURNALIST DIES 12703