The Iranian government's admission that Montreal photojournalist Zahra Kazemi died of a skull fracture suffered while in custody provoked Canadian demands yesterday that those responsible be identified and prosecuted.
"If crimes have been committed, we are demanding of the Iranian government to punish those who committed the crime, and we will push that case," Prime Minister Jean Chrétien said.
"It's completely unacceptable that a journalist goes there to do professional work and be threatened that way," he told a news conference in Shawinigan, Que.
"The government of Iran is a bit complicated, I am told," he added, referring to a power struggle between reformers, led by President Mohammed Khatami, and hard-line mullahs, which could make it difficult to ascertain the facts in the Kazemi case.
Earlier in the day, a key reformer, Iranian Vice-President Mohammed Ali Abtahi, said that Ms. Kazemi, 54, had a "brain hemorrhage caused by a beating."
Mr. Abtahi linked her death to a wave of arrests of independent journalists by unelected regime hard-liners.
"We have witnessed a kind of comprehensive attack" on journalists, Mr. Abtahi said, noting that the Kazemi case is hurting Iran's international reputation.
Health Minister Massoud Pezeshkian said in Tehran that he examined the body. Experts will examine the remains again to produce a forensic report by today.
Interior Minister Abdolvahed Moussavi-Lari, another of the cabinet ministers President Khatami assigned to investigate, said the case "has nothing to do with Canada" because Ms. Kazemi was in Iran as an Iranian citizen.
Mr. Khatami, who has been locked in a political struggle with powerful clerics and a hard-line Islamic judiciary, said "the way that journalists and other citizens are being treated is raising questions" at home and abroad.
"The law is not something to be observed only by citizens," the President was quoted as saying.
Ordering his justice and interior ministers to investigate the hard-liners' crackdown on journalists, he was quoted by IRNA, the official press agency, as saying: "The law must also be observed by us."
Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham told Canadian reporters the Kazemi case will be a test of whether Mr. Khatami and other reformers can prevail over the shadowy parallel power structure in Iran, which has its own secret police. Mr. Graham said he told his Iranian counterpart in a telephone call yesterday that Canada expects "there will be no question of immunity in this case."
Mr. Graham said Kamal Kharrazi responded that "they would do their best to pursue anyone responsible" and bring them to justice.
Ms. Kazemi, a dual national, returned on assignment to her native Iran this spring, travelling on her Iranian passport. She was arrested June 23 for photographing demonstrators outside a Tehran prison.
Three days later, she was transferred to an Iranian hospital run by the hard-line Revolutionary Guard. She died last Friday of what Iranian authorities originally reported as a "brain attack" suffered while under interrogation.
In fact, Ms. Kazemi had a fractured skull, Mr. Graham said, quoting the Iranian Foreign Minister.
Mr. Kharrazi said investigators need a few more days to investigate how she was injured. The Iranian Foreign Minister suggested the injury might have been the result of a fall.
Mr. Graham said the Iranian government must get to the bottom of the case because the journalist was in their custody.
The Iranian Foreign Minister agreed and said the Canadian embassy in Iran will be kept informed of all developments, Mr. Graham said.
The Iranians have rejected Canadian offers of forensic and other technical assistance, saying they are competent to conduct their own criminal investigation.
Mr. Graham suggested the Iranian investigation should be given a bit more time, saying Canada can assess later whether there has been a full airing of the facts or whether someone is hiding wrongdoing. "Let's give it a couple of days to work its way through this."
Canada will assess the way Iran deals with the Kazemi case in determining whether to move to closer economic and political relations with Iran, Mr. Graham said.
The Khatami government has been trying to cultivate better relations with Canada and Europe as a buffer between it and Washington. The U.S. administration describes Iran as part of an "axis of evil."
Meanwhile, in Montreal, Ms. Kazemi's son, Stephan Hachemi, called Iran's admission "positive" but insisted his mother's body be returned to him in Canada.
He accused the Canadian government of being slow in helping resolve the question.
"She's Canadian. I'm Canadian. It's been two weeks since we heard the news" of her arrest, he told a press conference. "Nothing has moved. I didn't get any positive results, any concrete actions from the [Canadian]government."
He denied Ottawa's contention that the family is divided over where to bury the body.
Canadian diplomats say Ms. Kazemi's mother, who lives in Iran, wants her buried there.
Mr. Hachemi said he speaks regularly to his grandmother in Iran, but her phone is tapped and she is unable to speak freely.
"It has been clear between us, and all the members of the family, that [Ms. Kazemi]won't be buried in the land of the people who murdered her," he said. "She belongs with me, her only child."
Ms. Kazemi's father is also in Iran, in the family's native city, Shiraz. Frail and unable to walk, he has only recently been told of his daughter's death.
Amnesty International said Iran's admission of her beating was only a first step.
"What we need to see is a thorough judicial investigation into the full circumstances of her death, with a view of bringing those responsible to justice," Keith Rimstad said on behalf of Amnesty.
Iran still has to show the political will to probe her death, he said.
"There is a danger that if the political will isn't there, and the investigation doesn't meet international standards, at the end of the day we won't necessarily get to the truth of what happened."
There are conflicting reports about whether Ms. Kazemi's body has been buried. The journalist freedom group Reporters Without Borders says Iran's ambassador to France, Seyed Sadegh Kharazi, told a delegation yesterday that Ms. Kazemi had been buried in Iran on July 13 or 14. Canadian and Iranian officials insist that has not yet occurred.
Yesterday, the Quebec National Assembly called on the Iranian government to make public all information regarding Ms. Kazemi's death and to respect her son's demand to return his mother's body to Canada.