April 2005
It
is time to break the silence on the crimes of the clerical regime in Iran.
By: K. Hooshiyar
Khashayar@iranreview.com
On July 11th, 2003,
the Canadian-Iranian photojournalist, Dr. Zahra Kazemi, died in a Tehran
hospital as a result of sever injuries incurred under systematic torture
by the Mullahs regime officials. She
died almost 17 days after
being arrested while photographing pro-democracy protesters in front of
the infamous Evin Prison in Tehran. Her body was buried on July 23, 2003
in Iran, contrary to the wishes of her family and formal requests from the
Canadian government.
The man accused of
killing Ms. Kazemi was put on Trial in Tehran on Saturday July 17,
2004. The trial
was attended, among others, by
Mr. Philip MacKinnon, Canada's
Ambassador, the representative of the European Community,
and a representative from the British Embassy in Tehran. However,
to everybody’s surprise, particularly Ms. Kazemi’s defense team, the
trial was abruptly halted. Criticizing Tehran’s decision, Angry over the
way Iran had handled Kazemi's death, Canada recalled its ambassador from Iran in July 2004, but
appointed a new ambassador to the post in late November. Last week a
description of Kazemi's death was revealed by Dr. Shahram Azam, who has
recently been granted political asylum in Canada. According to Dr. Azam, Kazemi had, among other injuries, a skull fracture, a punctured ear,
two broken fingers, missing fingernails and toenails, a crushed big toe,
and brutal damage to her genitals that indicated she had been raped.”
Canadian Foreign Affair minister Pierre Pettigrew says “cutting
diplomatic ties with Iran would be unproductive!”
Canadian government and media
have correctly put their
fingers on obfuscation and distortion of facts as well as the controversy
surrounding Ms. Kazemi's brutal murder.
Iran's handling of Kazemi's case has been considered by many
observers as "a brutal
travesty of Justice." Indeed, this is "an insult to justice."
How
can justice be served when
Mr. Mortazavi, the person who
personally delivered the fatal blows to Ms. Kazemi’s head with his shoe,
as reported by the French daily "Liberation," instead of being put on
trial, is promoted by the
supreme leader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as the prosecutor
of Tehran and the Islamic Revolution tribunal?!
However, these travesties are
not new to the thousands of victims of
the atrocities of the mullahs regime, international human rights
organizations, and those who follow events in Iran more closely.
Justice and human rights have become meaningless and luxury words
for ordinary Iranians for a long time.
Zahra Kazemi is among one of
the thousands of women and men who have been tortured and killed in Iran
prisons by the repressive clerical regime in the past 25 years.
To maintain their hold on power
in Iran, the clerical regime has virtually given carte blanche to its
agents of coercion to terrorize
and repress the Iranian people. A close look at the violation of
human rights in Iran, clearly shows that arbitrary beatings,
arrests, abductions, execution, and medieval torture have been a regular
feature of the Iranian political scene, regardless of
which faction of the theocracy is in power, "reformist" or
conservative.
Political control has not been
the only means of survival for the regime. As documented and reported by
the Amnesty international and Human Rights Watch (HRW), under the
Mullahs' rule, there has existed a complex, well institutionalized, abusive,
extremely frightening, and viciously enforced system of social control
based on daily punishment that has made life extremely miserable for the
majority of the people, particularly women.
Since the fall of the Pahlavi dictatorship, the ruling mullahs have
managed to create a gender apartheid system of segregation, forced
veiling, and second-class status. Furthermore,
they have enforced humiliating and medieval rules and punishments such as
lashing and stoning to death.
As Amnesty international
reports, "thousands of Iranians have been executed since 1979, many in
secret. Anyone suspected of supporting the opposition has been at risk of
arbitrary arrests and detention. Political
detainees have been brutally tortured in prison and detention centers
throughout the country. Political trials are summary, with practically no defense
rights at all. Courts impose
amputations and floggings as punishment – punishments which contravene
human rights by their cruelty and inhumanity."
According to the recently
published report by HRW, the Iranian
Judiciary is at the center of the human rights violations.
An elite group of judges appointed by and accountable to the
supreme Leader has virtually shut down public dissent.
The most recent victims of
Iranian judiciary are the leaders of the Iranian Student Movement, who
were arrested shortly after the 1999 uprising, and those
arrested in 2002 and 2003 in the Khatami's government crackdown
on political activists. On 7
July, Amnesty International renewed its call on the Iranian judiciary to
review the cases of these individuals, particularly their allegations of
torture and psychological abuse. HRW reports that there still exists
a high number of students and political activists in prision,
including Akbar Mohammadi, Ahmad Batebi, Manuchehr Mohammadi and Mehrdad
Lahrasbi.
It is time to break the silence
on the crimes of the clerical regime in Iran.
The current diplomatic tension between Ottawa and Teheran over the
suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of Ms. Kazemi and the last
July trial have provided
the Canadian public with a rare opportunity to see the true face of
the mullahs justice system and the
plight of millions of Iranians. It's time take concrete action
against the Iranian regime by
whatever means possible.
Given the world's silence, it
is not surprising that the clerical regime has been brutally repressing
dissent. The government of Iran has been
enjoying this silence on their crimes against humanity for quite
sometime. This silence has become possible by our indifference to the
plight of others and the
escalating crimes against humanity in many courtiers around the world from
the United States to Occupied territories to Iraq, Sudan, Saudi Arabia,
Kuwait, Egypt, Somalia, etc. It
has become possible by the compliancy of
some European and North American governments, their legitimization
of the Iranian regime when their economic interests have been at stake,
and the futility of their
continued trade and dialogue
with the mullahs to "promote democracy" and "democratic change in
Iran."
It is time for Canada to take a
tougher stand and disengage from Iran completely. Canada's official
policy of "controlled engagement" and appeasing the mullahs to
"promote democracy and
human rights" would not really amount to anything! It
has not even prevented Iran
from showing contempt for Canada. Canada should choose between its
economic interests and the cause of democracy and human rights in Iran.
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