Canada might add IRGC to Terror List

Canada could add Iran's Guard to terror list

...Canada is "very concerned" about Tehran's intervention outside its borders and has not ruled out banning the Iranian Revolutionary Guard under the Anti-Terrorism Act, says Stockwell Day, the Minister of Public Safety.

"We are very concerned about Iranian intervention in jurisdictions outside of their own, either if that's affecting our allies or if it's affecting us," Mr. Day said in an interview.

"We've got some pretty serious concerns on that."

Read more!

July 10, 4th Anniversary of the Death of Ziba Kazemi

Ziba Kazemi's Son, Stephan Hachemi

Ziba’ Award Celebrates the Life and Legacy of Zahra ‘Ziba’ Kazemi
New America Media, Commentary, Shahrzad Arshadi, Posted: Jul 10, 2007

Editor’s Note: July 10 marks the fourth anniversary of the death of Zahra “Ziba“ Kazemi, a Canadian photojournalist arrested after photographing a demonstration outside Evin prison in Iran following the student uprisings of 2003. Ziba was killed while in the custody of the Iranian judiciary. Shahrzad Arshadi, a founder of the Kazemi Foundation, celebrates Ziba’s life and legacy and provides an update on her son Stephan Hachemi’s legal case against the Islamic Republic.

NAM: Zahra “Ziba” Kazemi was a passionate, mysterious and adventurous woman who started her career as a photographer in her forties. A woman who lived by her wits as a freelance photographer, she became the most famous photojournalist of 2003 after her death. She was an only child; she lost her biological father when she was a baby. Ezat Kazemi, her mother, married after a little while to Mr. Keramat, who Ziba loved as her real father. Ziba grew up in Shiraz and continued her education in Tehran cinema school and received her doctorate in arts and literature in Paris, the city she lived in from 1974 until her migration to Montreal in 1993 with her only child, Stephan. The camera become a tool for Ziba, a tool through which she could express her concerns about what was happening around us. She travelled almost to all the troubled parts of the world: Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Mexico, Haiti, Africa and Iran. Looking through her camera’s viewfinder and focusing on little but important details was her way. Her focus was on ordinary people. With a sincerity matched by her talent and guts, Ziba was able to catch people’s human nature by focusing into their eyes. With that she could connect us all together through images from different parts of this world. In May 2003, she went to Iran from Iraq to get a visa in Tehran to travel to Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, two small countries in Central Asia. Her trip coincided with the June student uprising started in Tehran. As a photojournalist she had always reported on peoples’ struggling for democracy.


She was a witness. On June 23, 2003 Ziba was arrested photographing demonstrators in front of Evin prison, where countless students were being held following the government’s crackdown. Authorities asked Ziba to leave her camera and film and come back the next day to pick them up. Ziba refused and protested. She just could not leave her film with them. She stayed there and exposed the film to light in order to destroy any kind of evidence against demonstrators outside the prison. How dare a woman stand up to the Islamic Republic like this! They arrested her without any notice to her family and friends. She was tortured and beaten, and slipped into a coma. On July 10, the government unplugged her from life support at the hospital without her family’s knowledge. A week later, the Iranian government buried her in Shiraz against her son, Stephan’s, expressed wishes. Ziba was a woman who chose to die with dignity rather than live with shame and humiliation. What has the Canadian government done in the past four years? Ministers have put up many shows and issued many statements but they have not done a great deal to bring the murderers to justice. Stephan is still waiting for his mother’s body to be repatriated to Canada. It is his wish to bring Ziba’s body home and, despite the government’s repeated promises, there has been no progress. As Stephan said: “Ziba never wanted to be buried; her wish was to be cremated.” With the almost unanimous silence of the international community, and the absence of concrete measures from the Canadian government, the ordeal continues.

The Canadian government has refused to take the case to the International Court of Justice and confront Iran on legal grounds. That is why Stephan launched a civil suit in Quebec against the Iranian government, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, Chief Public Prosecutor for Tehran Saeed Mortazavi, and Mohammad Bakhshi, former Iranian deputy chief of intelligence for Evin prison. The case was initiated in July 2006 on the third anniversary of Ziba’s death.

With great hope and optimism we are anxiously waiting for the court process start here in Montreal. At the same time, Iran puts up a show every once in a while—a façade of justice—in order to eliminate the civil suit in Quebec. A case in point was Monday, July 2, 2007. According to the Gazette Montreal, “Iran's supreme court held a new appeal hearing on Monday into the death in custody four years ago of Montreal photojournalist Zahra Kazemi.” The Iranian government wants to show what happened to Ziba was an internal matter and Iran’s judiciary can deal with this case. Strangely none of Ziba’s family inside or outside Iran, including her son and mother were informed. They never knew about this supreme court hearing and all the other legal games the Iranian government is playing in order to manipulate international opinion about this very important matter. On February 2004, Stephan Hachemi established the Zahra Kazemi Foundation to honor his mother’s memory. Since its inception, this non-profit has organised multicultural events and photo exhibitions in Canada and abroad. For the fourth anniversary of Ziba Kazemi’s death to keep her life and legacy alive, it announced an international photography award called “Ziba.” This award is to encourage high standards in photojournalism for single images and for picture stories. The winners of the “Ziba” photography award will receive a cash prize at the award ceremony in Montreal. The ceremony for ZIBA’s photography award will be held on September 23, first day of autumn, the day Ziba–Zahra Kazemi—was born. Information about this award will be announced with greater details in www.zibakazemi.org in October 2007. Despite the violence unleashed by world leaders like Bush and Ahmadi-Nejad, there are thousands of people like Ziba who continue to stand up for human rights and freedom every day. We have to honor their lives and courage. As one of Ziba’s very old friends from Paris told me: “Ziba was stubborn and fearless, she was brave and never afraid to be herself.” Let us join her son, Stephan, in honoring her memory, supporting her case, celebrating her art and witnessing her life. Shahrzad Arshadi, a founder of the Zahra Kazemi foundation, is a Montreal based human rights activist, photographer and filmmaker. Reach her by email at zanekoly.ca For more information on Zahra Kazemi, please visit: http://www.zibakazemi.org/

Read more!

Ayatollah Crocodile Lecture in Waterloo University Cancelled

Protest shuts down clerics' (Murderers') visit

WATERLOO, Ontario (May 29, 2007)
Dozens of irate protesters yelling "shame," "murderers" and "terrorists" shouted down a Waterloo meeting last night that was intended to build peace.

About 50 protesters stood around the meeting hall at Conrad Grebel University College waiting for the dialogue between Mennonites and Muslim clerics from Iran to begin.
Police from Waterloo Region and Toronto, Waterloo firefighters, paramedics and University of Waterloo police were called in in anticipation of protests.

They arrived around 6 p.m., winding down their operations by about 9:10 p.m., after most protesters had left the Conrad Grebel parking lot.

Dozens of Toronto officers remained on standby throughout the evening, staged in a nearby parking lot, but weren't required to assist Waterloo police, Waterloo regional police Insp. Bryan Larkin said.

"Everybody has a democratic right to protest," Larkin said. "The underlying issue here is public safety, and our role here was to maintain the peace."

They shuffled around and held aloft a gruesome photo gallery of torture victims, hangings and firing squad executions they say were taken in Iran.

But less than a minute into a talk by a Shiite Muslim cleric from the Imam Khomeini Education and Research Institute in Qom, Iran, the barrage of shouts erupted.

One by one at first, then hitting a crescendo of chanting "Down with the Islamic Republic of Iran!"

Rev. Brice Balmer, moderator of the meeting tried to calm the loud crowd.
"This is a religious conference," he pleaded.
But it was to no avail.

The verbal salvos kept flying from around the room while more than 100 people in the audience calmly waited for the meeting to continue.

After about 10 minutes, and some failed attempts to negotiate for the protesters to have their say, organizers called off the meeting.

Members of the panel rose from their table on the stage and headed for a side door -- the cat-calls turned into cheers.

"We made our point" said Rahmen Nejati, one of the more vocal protesters. "They are not welcome in Canada."

[....]
The conference will continue.

"We expect that there will be a heavy police presence to make sure that that happens," she said.
Larkin said police will monitor the upcoming closed sessions as the conference continues.

(h/t to Winston)

Related Post: Ayatollah Crocodile Goes to Canada

Read more!

Film Footage of Iranian Students Getting Beaten Up

Potkin:

And now here are film footages of Iranian students getting beaten up at Alameh and Amirkabir university:
Herasat Attack 1
Herasat Attack 2

Herasat is a repressive body in every Iranian university and government work place which spies and reports on students and government employees and carries out such repressive acts as shown in the film footages above.Meanwhile, the chief of these thugs, Ayatollah Messbah Yazdi is invited to the Waterloo university by the Mennonites:
http://www.thestar.com/article/214357

I just hope Iranian ex-pats will do more than just a petition:
http://www.harkat.net/

From now on the word Mennonite for me will be synonymous with FILTH!

Katayoun on Waterloo University and inviting the thug Ayatollah to lecture on interfaith dialogue:
Without the slightest hesitation: An open-dialogue with the Iranian "scholar-clerics"!!!

Read more!

Ayatollah 'Crocodile' Might be Going to Canada!

Source: Potkin

The big headlines Read:

"Mesbah-Yazdi: If anyone insults the Islamic sanctities, Islam has permitted for

his blood to be spilled, no court needed either

Toronto star reports that Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi (AKA Ayatollah Crocodile) is apparently invited to Canadian University of Waterloo for a lecture on the subject of dialogue between Islam & Christianity from 27th to 30th of May 2007. This has the Iranian-Canadian community up in arms. Some excerpts:

A group of Iranian-Canadian academics and artists is vehemently protesting an invitation by the Mennonite Central Committee of Ontario to six Iranian Islamic scholars to take part in a conference at the University of Waterloo this month.

The Shia scholars, who are still awaiting visas, are from the Imam Khomeini Education and Research Institute. Its director is the controversial fundamentalist Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi, spiritual adviser to Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

This year, six representatives from the institute will present papers on the theme of spirituality at a four-day "dialogue on faith," co-sponsored by the Conrad Grebel University College, an affiliate of the University of Waterloo. "We're not against dialogue but the Mennonites are naive if they think they can open one with these people," says Haideh Moghissi, a York University sociologist who with 17 others signed a protest letter sent to the university.

She says Mesbah-Yazdi and his followers are "at the forefront of oppression in Iran," responsible for silencing all intellectuals who disagree with the regime.

"It hurts to know that while people are losing their lives over there, some people are opening the door to `dialogue' over here. Why doesn't the institute open it back there?"

It is the third symposium between the Mennonite committee and the Mesbah-Yazdi's institute since a relationship was established in 1998. The committee has also sponsored two of its post-graduate students to complete their PhDs at the University of Toronto.

"It's precisely because of the institute's closeness to Ahmadinejad that it's particularly important to cultivate a relationship," says committee director Rick Cober-Bauman.

He has responded to the critics, he says, offering a separate meeting to hear their views: "By no means do we want to minimize their concerns. Mennonites understand persecution."
But they also believe it is their calling to build peace, he adds.

"Maybe we are naive, but maybe things come from people who appear misguided or naive."
From his seminary in Qom, the holy city north of Tehran, Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi espouses total isolation from the West and zero tolerance to any veering away from fundamentalist Shia interpretation of Islam.

Mesbah-Yazdi is a strong advocate of the death penalty, public flogging and the use of suicide bombers against "enemies of Islam." Although his institute has dispatched 15 students to universities in Canada, Britain, Austria and elsewhere, Mesbah-Yazdi himself seems to have mixed feelings. He has said that Iranians who question the regime after studying abroad do so because they'd been trained in "psychological warfare" by foreign universities.

"He is the most dangerous mullah in Iran," says Saeed Rahnema, director of York University School of Public Policy and Administration, who spearheaded the protest.
Rahnema thinks that by co-sponsoring the May 27-30 conference, Conrad Grebel University College is giving legitimacy to Mesbah-Yazdi's ideology.

This man is Ahamdinejad's spiritual mentor and and a chief ideologue of the Hojjatieh sect.

This sect was so radical, vile, and extremist in their views that Ayatollah Khomeini ordered its dissolution and the Hojjatieh and the group disappeared for a while. After Khomeini's death, all of the main Shiite Grand Ayatollahs (Sources of Emulation for the Shiite faithful) rejected Khameni's theologian credentials as a Grand Ayatollah, essential for him to become the new Supreme Leader, except for two. One of them was Mesbah-Yazdi and the other, the now chief of judiciary, the Iraqi born, Ayatollah Shahroodi. Thus Mesbah came back again from obscurity and in return for his services to establish the new Supreme Leader, he asked for funds and facilities to run the Imam-Khomeini institute. On the surface, the role of this institute is to spread the teachings of Khomeini. In reality however, Messbah-Yazdi used the funds and the means at his disposal to once again strengthen the network of the Hojjatieh group.

I wonder how much money he has donated build a new wing for the University? Why is it that these universities and Churches never invite Ayatollah Taheri and Ayatollah Boroujerdi (he is still in prison , dead or still in the hospital; noone knows) to lecture on dialogue. There are hundreds of other Shia Ayatollahs who are much more learned and knowledgeable than these buffoons and murderers.

Read more!

Human Rights & the anti-war American Christian Leaders

Human rights activists testified before the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development of the Canadian Parliament. A few paragraphs below:

Let me now talk about murder, torture, and inhumane treatment by Iranian officials.

Since the Islamic revolution in 1979, it's estimated that more than 120,000 political executions have been committed by the regime. The number of prisoners in Iran is alarming and on the rise, and the number of people in Iranian custody is appalling and consequently widely condemned. For example, in December 2004, when a group of journalists publicly testified about their torture and warrantless arrests, they were threatened by the country's chief prosecutor with bodily harm to both them and their families.

There is also little justice for victims of torture and for subsequent “accidental deaths” that often occur during interrogations. Iran ranks, according to a major human rights group, at the top of the list “with respect to the number of executions in the country”.

More distressing, however, is the inhumane methods of execution, such as hanging, crucifixion, and stoning. Stoning is often a punishment for a crime being compatible with chastity and it is governed by the very specific guidelines under the Iranian penal code. For example, under article 104, the stones are supposedly supposed to be “not large enough to kill a person by one or two strikes”. The intention of this specification is to ensure that a person does not die immediately, but instead suffers a long and painful death.

This is a long paper but it's worth reading it in full. Do you think American anti-war Christian Leaders , meeting the "Christ-loving Ahamdinejad" in Iran ever considered asking him about the heinous and despicable crimes that his regime perpetrated against its own citizens since 1979 and continues to commit?

h/t to: Winston

Read more!

God Bless Canada and Pajama Media!

Remember Kamalfar family stock in Moscow airport for 9 months, "We Drink and Bathe from the Toilets" -- Iranian Dissident Trapped 73 Days in Moscow Airport ?

They have arrived!!

Zahra Kamalfar and her two children arrived in Vancouver, Canada today after being trapped at the transit hall of Moscow international airport for the past 9 months under threat of deportation to Iran.

She and her children are free!

Read more!