Canada calls for arrest of Iranian at human rights conference

CBC News

Fri, 23 Jun 2006

The clamour for action against an Iranian official implicated in the murder of Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi is growing.

Saeed Mortazavi is Iran's prosecutor general. In 2003, Mortazavi ordered the detention and interrogation of Kazemi, who was tortured and later died of her injuries.

This week, Mortazavi resurfaced as part of Iran's official delegation to the inaugural meetings of the new UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

Iran can't even get into the new human rights club, since it failed to win election to the council. It decided to show up anyway, and sent a team of observers to the council's first meetings in Switzerland.

George Gordon-Lennox of the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders was shocked to see Mortazavi. His role, said Gordon-Lennox, has been "putting journalists in prison."

But there are also accusations of torture, and in the case of Kahzemi, involvement in both her murder and the subsequent coverup.

"What it says to us about the council is that the council is not getting off to quite as good a start as anyone would hope," said Gordon-Lennox.

Iranian exile Hamid Rezah Eshagee was appalled at the inclusion of Mortazavi in the delegation, calling it "a humiliation, a provocation and an act of defiance" on the part of Iran toward the council and also Canada.

Eshagee is calling for Mortazavi's arrest, in spite of diplomatic immunity, but that is unlikely to happen.

Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay said in a news release that he is disgusted by Iran's action.

"The presence of Mr. Mortazavi in Iran's delegation demonstrates the government of Iran's complete contempt for internationally recognized principles of human rights," he said.

The Canadian government has also demanded Mortazavi's arrest.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki, for his part, hurled accusations of abuse right back at the accusers, especially the United States, whose prisoners are "tortured in solitary confinements for interrogation such as prisons in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib."

This week marks the third anniversary of Kazemi's arrest.