Iran bars diplomats, press from photographer's murder trial
Iran today barred Canadian and European diplomats, as well as journalists representing foreign media, from the trial of a secret agent charged with murdering an Iranian-Canadian photojournalist.
Officials gave no reason for the ban.
A day earlier, diplomats and media had been allowed to attend the trial into the death of Zahra Kazemi.
Canadian Ambassador Philip Mackinnon, Netherlands Ambassador Hein de Vries - representing the European Union – and British and French diplomats were barred from entering the court in Tehran.
About two dozen journalists were also kept out.
“We’ve been told we don’t have the necessary permission to attend the trial today. We are in contact with the Iranian Foreign Ministry about this,” said one of the diplomats.
A clearly outraged Mackinnon and other diplomats left the building after waiting for more than one and a half hours outside the court. Mackinnon remained outside the courthouse, smoking in the sun as proceedings continued inside.
Officials are believed to be unhappy after lawyers for Kazemi’s mother on Saturday blamed a hard-line judiciary official for the death, not the intelligence agent standing trial for the crime.
Kazemi’s mother also complained that her daughter had been tortured to death.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said there was no reason to allow foreign diplomats and journalists to attend all court trials, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported Sunday, after the day’s proceedings had begun.
“Any such presence would not in any way add to the fairness or impartiality of any trial. … The decision to bar the press in a criminal proceeding is usual in most countries in order to prevent a prejudgment of the case,” IRNA quoted Asefi as saying.
Iran’s hard-line judiciary also ordered two pro-democracy publications to be shut down on Saturday. Sources at the newspapers said officials were apparently upset with an article one of them published earlier this week about Kazemi’s death.
Kazemi, a Canadian freelance journalist of Iranian origin, died July 10, 2003, while in detention.
She was detained for taking photographs outside a Tehran prison during student-led protests against the ruling Islamic establishment.
Iranian authorities initially denied Kazemi had died under unnatural circumstances, saying she had a stroke. Later, a presidential committee found that she died of a fractured skull and brain hemorrhage from a blow to the head.
Secret agent Mohammad Reza Aghdam Ahmadi, the only person implicated by the judiciary in what is called the ”semi-premeditated murder,” pleaded not guilty on Saturday.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, who leads a four-member legal team representing Kazemi’s mother, rejected prosecutors’ contention that Ahmadi was responsible for Kazemi’s death.
Ebadi instead accused prison official Mohammad Bakhshi of inflicting the fatal blow and blamed the hard-line judiciary for illegally detaining her. Bakhshi has been cleared of any wrongdoing but under Iranian law, lawyers can accuse someone already cleared of a crime.
“If the defendant (Ahmadi) is convicted without others invited to the court for explanations, the verdict will be illegal and unacceptable,” Ebadi told reporters before entering the courthouse today.
Ebadi’s team has demanded that the court call several top officials, including hard-line Tehran Prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi, to explain Kazemi’s death.
The Canadian government has blamed Mortazavi for the death, and reformists have accused him of trying to cover up facts surrounding it.
The case has strained Iranian-Canadian ties and led to finger-pointing between hard-liners and reformers within Iran’s ruling Islamic establishment.
Ebadi said Kazemi had been accused of spying and endangering Iran’s national security, but there was no evidence in the indictment to prove the charges.
