TORTURE: RSF Condemns Trial of Intelligence Ministry Agent on Anniversary of Photojournalist’s Death in Custody

The conviction of scapegoat intelligence ministry official for the death in custody of Canadian-Iranian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi would mean that senior officials implicated in the murder will remain unpunished, Reporters sans Frontiers said in a statement on the anniversary’s of the murder. July 9, 2004 - In a statement marking the first anniversary of the death in custody of Canadian-Iranian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi, the Paris-based press freedom advocacy group Reporters sans Frontiers (RSF) said it suspects that “senior Iranian officials implicated in this murder will remain unpunished and that a scapegoat will be convicted in order to put an end to a case that is embarrassing for the regime.” RSF identified Tehran prosecutor Said Mortazavi, who had reportedly been present at Zahra Kazemi’s interrogation, as one of the officials evading punishment in the case. “We nonetheless hope that the trial due to take place on July 17 will shed full light on this killing and that our Canadian section, which is still awaiting visas, will be able to attend as observers, the RSF added in the statement. “Certainly everything is quite disappointing,” spokesman of RSF’s Canadian chapter Tanya Churchmuch tells Radio Farda’s Toronto correspondent Maryam Aghvami. “I feel that in the past year we have not advanced at all, and we are still in the first square.” Kazemi died of head injuries she suffered during interrogation in the Evin prison, after being arrested for taking pictures of prisoners’ families rallying outside.