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'Blow to head' killed journalist
TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- An Iranian committee investigating the death of a Canadian photojournalist says she died from a physical attack, the Islamic Republic News Agency has reported. The committee's finding confirms what Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi announced last week -- that Zahra Kazemi, 54, died from a blow to the head which caused a brain hemorrhage. The vice president did not say how Kazemi received the blow. The cabinet ministers on the committee are investigating to see whether there is culpability in the case. A full report will be released with details of the death on Monday. Kazemi, an Iranian-born journalist from Canada, was arrested June 23 and interrogated by Iranian authorities after taking photographs of a prison north of Tehran where families of those arrested were demonstrating. Iranian authorities had initially said Kazemi complained she was not feeling well and was transferred to Bahiatollah Hospital in Tehran June 26, where she had a stroke and died two weeks later. President Mohammad Khatami assigned four cabinet members to investigate the circumstances surrounding Kazemi's death. In Monday's report, the state run IRNA said, the committee will make public the "full details" of her death, government spokesman Abdollah Ramezanzadeh said. If anyone involved in the Iranian government is found to be involved in her death, Ramezanzadeh said, they will be brought to justice, IRNA reported. Kazemi's only son, Stephan Hachemi, who lives in Montreal, said Iran's government had acknowledged his mother "has been beaten to death."
Hachemi has demanded Iran return Kazemi's body to Canada, and he disputed an IRNA report that Kazemi's mother, who lives in Iran, has requested she be buried in Shiraz. "My grandmother wants exactly the same as I do, to have the body of Zahra Kazemi to be brought back to Canada," he said, adding that his grandmother was "under a lot of pressure" and was "forced" to make a "false declaration." "It has been clear between us and all the members of the family that [Kazemi] won't be buried in the land of the people that murdered her," Hachemi said. "She belongs with me, her only child." The investigating committee said they won't bury the body until members finish their work, but the Iranian government nevertheless has rejected Canada's request for Kazemi's body to be transferred there. "In our view, no foreign government has the right to make any special comment in this regard, given the Iranian nationality of Mrs. Kazemi," Ramezanzadeh has said. Days before her arrest, Kazemi had requested and was granted a work permit to cover reports on Tehran University and its students for the English "camera press," Iran's director of foreign news media Mohammad Hussein Khoshvaqt told IRNA. Her permit was granted to her as an Iranian national and, therefore, she was not treated like a foreign journalist, he said. After receiving the license, Kazemi cut her contact with the Department of the Foreign Press and Media until "we heard from relevant authorities that she, ignoring all regulations, had been taking photos from the Evin prison north of Tehran" and compiling a report on the families of those arrested during the recent unrest in Tehran, Khoshvaqt told IRNA. Iran announced that more than 4,000 people were arrested during protests, which began June 10 and lasted nine consecutive nights, including about 800 students. The protests called for reforms and increased freedoms in the strict Islamic government. Many turned violent, as government authorities and vigilantes attacked the protesters, who in some cases fought back.
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