When the news first broke that a Canadian photojournalist, Ziba Zahra Kazemi, was killed while being detained by Iranian authorities, the Canadian government expressed outrage by recalling its ambassador to Iran, demanding Ms. Kazemi’s body returned to Canada and that an investigation into her death be conducted.
That was two years ago, and the latest development in the Zahra Kazemi story continues to be played out in the theatre of the absurd. After illegally burying Kazemi’s body against the wishes of her family, and refusing to allow the Canadian ambassador access to the mock trial and investigation into Kazemi’s death, the Iranian government has clearly not obliged any of Canada’s demands.
This past week Iranian doctor Shahram Azam gave testimony in Ottawa that he was on duty the night Kazemi was admitted to a Tehran hospital, and his detailed examination of Kazemi’s body coincides with her own mother’s report of what she saw when visiting her daughter there. Azam has revealed to the Canadian government what has long been suspected: that Kazemi was brutally tortured to death.
For many people, reading of the abuse that Kazemi endured before being carted off for death was quite unbearable. Forty-eight hours after Dr. Azam’s testimony, Iranian officials rejected it as differing too sharply from the assertion of Iran’s judiciary in July 2004 that Kazemi died of a fall caused by dizziness from a hunger strike. Referring to Azam as a “defector,” Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Hamid Reza Asefi told the state-run news agency IRNA, “Hospital officials have denied this person’s name was on the medical staff team,” concluding that this new evidence is part of a campaign to damage Iran’s image in the international arena.
Perhaps the first step that Canada should take is to remind Mr. Asefi and the Iranian government that it is Iran itself that has been spearheading this smear campaign. With its insistence on torture and terror as cornerstones of its foreign and domestic policy, the Iranian government has shown to the international community what Iranians have known for too long: the Iranian government has absolutely no regard for human rights.
As Canada has been slow to realize, the reality is that there is no independent judiciary in the Islamic Republic of Iran; there is only the reality of absolute rule, in the form of a supreme jurisconsult (the velayat e faqih), who receives his mandate from the cosmos. Canadian citizens should be able to trust that the Canadian government will address the realities of the Iranian system of governance.
But how Canada purports to hold the Iranian government accountable has yet to be discovered. Two years have passed since the detainment, rape, torture, and murder of an Iranian-Canadian, and the Canadian government continues to “search for the truth” and “review its options.” In fact, Canada’s Minister of foreign affairs, Pierre Pettigrew, has already noted that Canada is not going to recall its ambassador or propose economic sanctions. Granted, annual trade between the two countries sits at only around $300 million, an argument that the Canadian government is currently utilizing to justify its continued bilateral relations with Iran. Yet it is an amount that the Canadian government is obviously not willing to part with.
The truth is that a Canadian photojournalist gave her life for trying to expose the Iranian government for what it is, and for Canada to continue its futile engagement with the Islamic Republic of Iran is not only nonsensical and disingenuous, but quite offensive. Zahra Kazemi chose to be Canadian, and that means something more than simply being born here. Canada must demonstrate, not only to the Iranian-Canadian community, which numbers some three hundred thousand, but also to all of its nationals, why Kazemi chose to come to this country in the first place.
It was a Canadian who penned the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, a declaration that the Iranian government is a signatory to. Canada must begin to utilize the institutions that it has helped to develop, and begin to live up to the image that it has constructed for itself.
If Paul Martin wants to increase Canada’s presence in the international community, this is an excellent place to begin. If not, Canadians need to start asking themselves whether or not there is a two-tier system of citizenship in this country.
