Replies

Canada Hunts for Body of Photographer in Iran

Mon July 14, 2003 04:10 PM ET

By David Ljunggren
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian diplomats in Tehran are hunting for the body of a Montreal-based freelance photographer who died from alleged head wounds after being arrested, officials said on Monday.

The case of 54-year-old Zahra Kazemi is becoming increasingly confused amid disagreements between her mother -- who has given permission for the body to be buried in Iran -- and her son, who wants it returned to Canada for an autopsy.

Iranian President Mohammad Khatami on Sunday ordered a probe into the death of Kazemi, who was arrested in late June after taking pictures of Tehran's notorious Evin jail, where many dissidents are jailed.

Kazemi's son and friends in Canada insist she was beaten into a coma while Iranian officials say she fell ill after her interrogation started and died of "a brain attack."

Canadian officials denied reports Kazemi had already been buried, saying the argument between mother and son meant Iranian authorities were likely to take a final decision.

Ottawa is under increasing pressure from the family and activists in Montreal to ensure the return the body of Kazemi, a Canadian of Iranian descent. She died late on Friday.

"We're still verifying in Iran, through the Canadian embassy, where Ms Kazemi's remains are," a Canadian official told Reuters.

"Her remains are not buried yet. A final determination regarding the disposal of the remains -- i.e. whether they're going to be buried in Iran or whether they're going to be repatriated to Canada, as the son wishes -- will be in all likelihood a decision to be taken by a judicial body in Iran."

Canada -- which backs what it says is the son's ultimate right to decide -- wants to enlist the help of Ambeyi Ligabo, the U.N. Human Rights Commission's special rapporteur on promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, who is due to visit Iran from July 17 to 27.

Canada's ambassador in Tehran would try to meet Ligabo in Iran and persuade him to take an interest in the case, the official said.

Kazemi's son, Stephan Hachemi, has sent a letter to the Iranian embassy formally requesting the return of the body. He said he was sure Iranian officials had forced his grandmother to grant permission for the body to be buried quickly.

But the Canadian official said even if a decision were taken to bury Kazemi, "given the probable judicial component of the whole situation, the burial might not be in sight (imminent)."

Activists insist Ottawa be tough with Tehran.

"We have to be strong in our resolve to demand an independent inquiry and call Iran to task for its handling of this grotesque incident," Joel Ruimy, head of Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, told CBC television.

An official at the Iranian embassy in Ottawa said the fact Khatami had become involved meant the case of Kazemi was now gathering plenty of attention.

"This is a big political internal issue in Iran now," the official said.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=UAJKIC25X2NAQCRBAEZSFEY?type=topNews&storyID=3086773

"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail me”

American Companies Armed Iran For Many Years

Translated from Russian by Maria Gousseva
Jul 15, 2003

US special services discovered that 18 American companies supposedly supplied weapons to the country

As a result of an investigation of illegal supplies of military technologies to Iran agents of US special services discovered that 18 American companies supposedly supplied weapons to the country.

Associated Press reports that through London's company Multicore Ltd., related to the Iranian military, Teheran was supplied with spare parts for the F-14, F-4 and F-5 battle planes, to the S-130 troop-carriers, Hawk anti-aircraft missiles and military radars.

The information is spread by the Immigration Bureau and the War Crimes Investigation Service. No charges have been brought yet; violations of the act on control over weapons export are being investigated.

In this connection Pentagon Inspector Joseph Schmitz declared that "lives of US pilots were jeopardized with the illegal military supplies." The investigation is being held at the time when the USA is intensifying the pressure upon Iran; it also demands that Iran must stop supposed experiments with nuclear weapons. The USA demands that American companies must stop all kinds of contacts with Iran which may give the country more advanced military technologies.

Intelligence agents focused on activity of Multicore for the first time in February 1999 when special services suspected that a Californian branch of the company supplied spare parts for F-14 fighters to Iran. A search was held in the company in December 2000 when thousands of spare parts for battle planes and cruise missiles were discovered at the storehouses of the London company. Soon after that, two workers of the company were found guilty of violating the agreements on arms export. A brother of one of the men, Sorosh Homaini was arrested in London; his activity is still investigated in Great Britain. In 1998, the USA sentenced the criminal to 21 months of imprisonment for an attempt to start illegal export of military radars; later he was expelled from the USA.

A Multicore spokesperson in London with whom Associated Press contacted denied that the company illegally supplied weapons to Iran. Representatives of American companies insist they had no notion that their weapons further went to Iran; many of them deny that they had any kind of contacts with London's Multicore. Majority of US companies are now cooperating with the structures conducting the investigation.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_1160.shtml

Cuba Accused of Blocking U.S. Satellite Feeds to Iran

July 15, 2003
Miami Herald
Nnancy San Martin

WASHINGTON -- Transmitters in Cuba are jamming the signals of at least four U.S.-based television stations owned by Iranian Americans who are critical of the Tehran regime and use satellites to transmit programs to Iran, according to broadcasters and a private U.S. firm that has pinpointed the source of the interference.

All the transmissions affected so far are beamed from Los Angeles -- which has a large population of Iranian exiles -- by privately owned stations that oppose Iran's theocratic government, officials of the four stations said.

U.S. government officials said they are still trying to determine whether three other satellite broadcasts, transmitted by the Voice of America from Washington to Iran, are also being disrupted.

''We simply don't know if our signals are being jammed,'' said Joe O'Connell, a spokesman for the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which is in charge of the U.S.-funded VOA broadcasts.

IMPROVING QUALITY

News of the Cuban jamming came as U.S. authorities revealed they have been studying ways to enhance TV Martí broadcasts to Cuba by using analog satellite transmissions -- rather than digital transmissions currently being used -- that are more difficult to jam and more easily captured by the estimated 10,000 to 15,000 satellite dishes on rooftops across the island.

''In the future, things might change,'' O'Connell said, adding that his office recently ran some experiments on improving satellite transmission to the island. ``The whole idea was to find effective ways to enhance TV and Radio Martí to Cuba.''

The disruptions of the California broadcasts were first detected on July 5. Broadcasters have since been unable to get their programs to reach Iran, where the ruling Muslim clerics have sought to bar access to media not controlled by the government.

''We never thought that in a country such as the United States we'd be suppressed from freedom of speech,'' said Kourosh Abbassi, a spokesman at Azadi Television, which promotes political change in Iran. ``Seeing as we have no ax to grind with the Cuban government, they must be in cahoots with the Iranian government.''

ANTI-AMERICAN

Cuba has long been friendly with the equally anti-American Iranian regime, even selling biotechnology used to manufacture medical products to Tehran in the late 1990s that a Cuban defector alleged in 2001 could be used to produce biochemical weapons.

The jamming, first reported by NBC News, began as the Washington-based VOA began broadcasting a new Persian-language television program, News & Views, to Tehran as Iranian students launched a series of street protests against their government.

FCC officials confirmed that they were looking into the jamming reports.

John McCarthy, a spokesman for Loral Skynet, the operator of the Telstar-12 satellite used by the California broadcasters to beam their signals to Iran, told The Herald that the company has identified the source of the jamming, but declined to discuss further details.

However, according to a letter from the Loral Skynet made public by Azadi Television, a privately owned U.S. transmitter location company was able ``to provide an ellipse of the most probable location of the source of the interference, which it identified as being in the vicinity of Havana, Cuba.''

Efforts to reach Cuban officials for comment were unsuccessful.

It is presumed that Iran is using jammers in Cuba, 90 miles off the U.S. coast, because they are physically closer to the Telstar satellites.

The other affected stations are Channel 1, Pars TV and National Iranian TV, which began its broadcasts to Iran three years ago.

The U.S.-funded VOA uses two satellites for its transmissions to Iran, Telstar 12 and another that covers the Middle East, Europe, Russia and North Africa.

BALLOON IN THE SKY

TV Martí relies primarily on a regular TV signal, not a satellite, broadcast from a balloon tethered 10,000 feet above Cudjoe Key in the Florida Keys. Those transmissions are easily blocked by the Cuban government.

But TV Martí, with little fanfare, has also been broadcasting since 1990 on satellite through New Skies 806, the Latin America net portion of the U.S. International Broadcasting Bureau. IBB, a U.S. government agency, is the parent agency of the Office of Cuba Broadcasting in Miami.

TV Martí's satellite broadcasts are widely available in Latin America via cable services. But its digital service requires Cubans with satellite reception dishes to use a hard-to-obtain converter, O'Connell said.

Regular, analog, satellite transmissions to the island have not been used in the past because the number of satellite receiver dishes in Cuba has been limited. But over the past five years there has been a boom in Cuba's black market for satellite receivers that U.S. officials hope to tap into.

U.S. officials have been struggling with Cuban jamming of TV and Radio Martí for a decade. In May, the Pentagon deployed a special airplane to test improvements in transmissions to Cuba, using a technology meant to break through the ''wall'' of Cuban jamming efforts and make the U.S.-operated stations more effective at reaching Cubans.

TV Martí costs about $11 million a year. About another $15 million goes to Radio Martí.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/6304655.htm

"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail me”

Reformers: Iran Must Chose Democracy or Despotism

Tue July 15, 2003 08:47 AM ET
By Jon Hemming
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Some 350 reformist intellectuals urged Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Tuesday to end repression and free political prisoners, saying the Islamic Republic must choose between democracy and despotism.

The politicians, academics, activists and lawyers said Khamenei, Iran's most powerful figure, should overhaul the hard-line judiciary and conservative institutions that have blocked much of moderate President Mohammad Khatami's reforms.

Around a dozen journalists have been arrested since violent protests last month and one Canadian photographer died after being detained. Some 4,000 were arrested during the student unrest in which slogans targeted both hard-liners and reformers.

"Resorting to violence, crackdowns and authoritarian methods, as we see today toward students, will bear no result but exacerbating the crisis," said the letter to Khamenei, a copy of which was faxed to Reuters.

"Such methods...are not only illegal and lack popular, religious and moral legitimacy, but are also useless and inefficient," it said.

The letter was the latest in a string of missives sent by parliamentarians and dissidents calling for change. Last month 250 intellectuals wrote an open letter accusing the clerical establishment of putting themselves in the place of God.

Pro-reform journalist and former deputy Culture Minister Issa Saharkhiz, whose office distributed the letter to the media, was arrested Tuesday on unspecified charges, his office said.

The manager of the magazine Theater Sinema was also arrested Tuesday on charges connected to a picture published in it, the ISNA student news agency said.

"VITAL DILEMMA"

The intellectuals' letter to Khamenei reflected a debate over the precedence of the Islamic or the republican side of the Islamic Republic; whether officials appointed by Iran's top cleric Khamenei or those popularly elected should hold sway.

"We believe the Islamic Republic is now in a vital dilemma," the letter said.

"One way is to succumb to a despotic interpretation of Islam and the constitution by appointing people who do not have any standing before public opinion...whose measures have led to a storm of frustration," it said.

"The other way is to succumb to a democratic interpretation of the constitution...to save the country and repel foreign threats."

With U.S. troops at both Iran's front and back doors in Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran has come under increasing pressure over allegations it was developing nuclear arms and backing terrorism, giving a new edge to the domestic political debate.

The United States strongly supported the demonstrations. Tehran has accused Washington of blatant interference in its affairs.

Khatami's efforts to create more open, responsible rule have been frustrated by appointed conservatives who have blocked his reform bills at every turn and hard-line judges who have banned some 90 pro-reform publications in the last three years.

The intellectuals said their minimum demands were an overhaul of the judiciary, changes to the 12-man Guardian Council which can veto laws, the approval of two bills giving Khatami more power and the release of political prisoners.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=3091476

"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail me”

Journalist sought to expose injustice
Life ended as she pursued her passion

KINDA JAYOUSH
The Gazette Canada.com
Tuesday, July 15, 2003

Montreal photojournalist Zahra Kazemi dedicated herself to documenting the living conditions in war-torn areas and exposing injustices against women and children.

Her life ended shortly after her arrest in Tehran last month while covering one of those stories she was most passionate about.

Iranian authorities detained Kazemi on or about June 23 as she was taking pictures of the notorious Evin prison in northern Tehran, where many political dissidents are locked up.

Melanie Navarro, assistant editor of Montreal's Recto Verso magazine, where Kazemi's pictures and articles were published over the past seven years, described Kazemi as a courageous person with a strong humanitarian sense.

"She was a woman who was really full of love for everybody. A very special person," Navarro said. "She had a strong passion for her work and was very much interested in social issues and women's rights."

Kazemi, 54, who arrived in Montreal from France in 1993, worked hard to confront injustices and was able to connect with people and capture their innermost feelings in her pictures.

"With her kind heart, she knew how to get close to people and portray their emotions and sufferings," Navarro said.

"She was very active and when she was confronted with injustices, she did not settle until she exposed them," she added.

Kazemi, who was of Iranian descent, travelled extensively around the Middle East and covered living conditions in Palestinian refugee camps.

Her last report with Recto Verso was in April. It included an article and pictures about the critical living conditions in Afghanistan after the U.S.-led coalition toppled the Taliban regime.

After this report and before heading to Iran, she was in Iraq for six weeks to document the situation there after the end of the U.S.-led war.

She went to Tehran as an Iranian citizen on her way to Turkmenistan where she was planning to cover a story about Russians being expelled from the former republic of the ex-Soviet Union. After that she wanted to head to North Korea.

Kazemi stayed longer than planned in Iran to cover last month's protests by students demanding reforms. About 4,000 people were arrested.

Kazemi was detained while taking pictures of Evin prison. Her family was later notified by the Iranian authorities that she was in a hospital.

Her family alleged she was beaten into coma. Friends who visited her said they saw severe cuts and bruises on her face and head.

Navarro said Kazemi's colleagues want to see more details on what happened between the arrest and her being taken to hospital.

"Whatever has happened shouldn't have happened," she said. "It is too late for Zeba to return, but we really need her body to be repatriated to have it examined and know exactly how she died."

kjayoush@thegazette.canwest.com

© Copyright 2003 Montreal Gazette

http://www.canada.com/montreal/news/story.asp?id=D33DECB8-367E-461B-BE90-19CC6113CEC1

Dissidents seek to apply more pressure on Khamenei

Tuesday, July 15, 2003 - ©2003 IranMania.com

TEHRAN, July 15 (AFP) - A group of 350 Iranian dissidents has written an open letter to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei demanding a major reform of the clerical regime and the freeing of all political prisoners.

"The judiciary needs to undergo fundamental changes. One of the main reasons of general discontent is the unjust manner of the judiciary in the arrests, prosecutions and trials," said the strongly-worded declaration, the latest in a series signed by reformists, liberals, journalists, intellectuals and several clerics.

"Political prisoners, journalists and students must be immediately freed and the newspapers which were banned without due process must be allowed to start their activities again," it said.

The signatories also targetted the Guardians and Expediency Councils, two unelected legislative oversight bodies that have frequently blocked reforms passed by the reformist-held parliament.

They said the bodies "lack a public base and do not have an appropriate view of peoples' problems".

Among the signatories to the letter was Zohreh Aghajari, whose brother, pro-reform dissident Hashem Aghajari, was sentenced to death last year on charges of blasphemy after he questioned the right to rule of clerics.

He is currently awaiting a revision of his sentence.

Other signatories were close allies of embattled pro-reform President Mohammad Khatami, members of the banned-but-tolerated Iran Freedom Movement (IFM), journalists, and prominent academics.

Also on the list of names that followed the five-page letter were relatives and supporters of top dissident cleric Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who was initially tapped to replace revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as supreme leader but fell out of favour and then spent five years under house arrest.

The letter said the nearly 25-year-old Islamic republic was facing three major crisis, concerning its legality, public participation in elections and efficiency.

"Resorting to violence, suppression and authoritative methods will only intensify these crises," the letter read.

"You have always related the general discontent to economic corruption, poverty, discrimination and high prices, whereas the roots of the problem lies in the growing gap between government and nation," the letter said.

It nevertheless attributed Iran's economic crisis to "the existing political deadlock and presence of an economic Mafia".

Also Tuesday, Grand Ayatollah Montazeri issued his own statement, calling on officials to turn to their own people instead of allegedly seeking covert negotiations with the United States.

"Unfortunately we are witnessing that the officials are covertly sending people outside Iran to negotiate with the United States, at a time when they are not ready to come to terms with their own people and listen to them," Montazeri said in a statement released by his office.

"If they are afraid of the US, then they should comply with people's demands to win their support, it is only then that the US cannot topple the regime that has its own people's support," he said.

http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=17005&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs