Posted on 07/23/2003 1:57:42 PM PDT by knighthawk
TEHRAN: A Canadian journalist who died in custody in Tehran was buried in her birthplace in southern Iran on Wednesday against the wishes of her son and the Canadian government who wanted her body to be returned to Canada.
Zahra Kazemi, 54, a photojournalist of Iranian descent living in Canada, died on July 10, more than two weeks after she was arrested for taking pictures outside a prison in Tehran.
A government inquiry into her death said she had died of a brain haemorrhage caused by a severe blow to the head.
But despite calls from the European Union and Canada for Iran to prosecute those responsible for her death, officials in the Islamic Republic have yet to say whether Kazemi was hurt deliberately or who may have caused her death.
State television showed images of Kazemi's coffin being carried out of a mosque in the city of Shiraz, southern Iran. A witness told Reuters flowers were piled on the mound of earth at the freshly dug grave where Kazemi was buried.
State media said Kazemi had been buried in Iran in accordance with her mother's wishes.
But Kazemi's son, who lives in Canada, said on Tuesday his 75-year-old grandmother had told him she was "forced" by Iranian authorities to authorise the burial in Iran.
Canadian Foreign Minister Bill Graham told Canada's CTV that Ottawa's envoy to Tehran had lodged a formal protest with Iranian authorities about the burial.
According to Canadian officials Kazemi's mother, Ezzet Kazemi, had recently ceded to her grandson's wishes for the body to be taken back to Canada.
Graham said he hoped to speak to his Iranian counterpart Kamal Kharrazi soon. "When I speak to the foreign minister I'm going to say to him 'Look, you told me it was the mother's wishes that would prevail in Iranian law'," Graham said.
Iran has nothing to worry about - by tomorrow morning this entire incident will be all Bush's fault.
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