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Couple more points to add as to why Canada should not have political relations with Iran - mainly because Iran laughs at the rights of people with Canadian passports. Iran does not respect the Canadian Passport. Iran does not abide by Diplomatic Immunity rules. Just to give you some examples:
Zahra Kazemi, A female Canadian photojournalist was killed in Iranian custody after she was arrested for photographing a student protest. There are reports she was raped and tortured.
Hossein Derakhshan, an Iranian Canadian Blogger, has been in Iranian custody since 2008 for comments he made about an Iranian cleric. He was accused of spying for Israel and sentenced to 19 years in prison.
Saeed Malekpour, a web designer and programmer has been sentenced to death for his part in creating a photo sharing program that was used for pornography.
Ghassemi-Shall, Iranian Canadian shoe salesman, sentenced to death on charges of spying.
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Canadian stymied in efforts to help Hamid Ghassemi-Shall
Published on Wednesday March 14, 2012
As Toronto shoe salesman Hamid Ghassemi-Shall awaits execution in an Iranian prison, efforts by the Canadian government to help him have been rebuffed.
“Iran has repeatedly refused Canada’s requests to allow us to visit Mr. Ghassemi-Shall, a Canadian citizen, to provide consular assistance,” said a statement from John Babcock, spokesman for Diane Ablonczy, the minister responsible for consular affairs.
“We are very concerned about reports that Mr. Ghassemi-Shall may be facing the death penalty.”
Ghassemi-Shall, 43, was arrested in 2008 on a visit to his bereaved mother in Iran. He was charged with espionage and condemned to death after a trial widely decried as unfair.
Although an Iranian judge has said he would review the case, and believed Ghassemi-Shall not guilty, apparent political pressure has ended hope of an appeal. Iran has executed more than 600 people in the last year, and the pace is escalating. |
And then there's this - Ahmadinejad still calls for wiping Israel off the map, in nicer words this time:
http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/...E8JH4XX20120817
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DUBAI, Aug 17 (Reuters) - Many thousands of Iranians shouted "Death to America, death to Israel" during state-organised protests on Friday and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told them there was no place for the Jewish state in a future Middle East.
Iran, penalised by tough Western sanctions, faces the threat of an Israeli or U.S. military strike on its disputed nuclear facilities. With popular uprisings reshaping the region, the Islamic Republic is also trying to prevent the overthrow of its closest Arab ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
"You want a new Middle East? We do too, but in the new Middle East ... there will be no trace of the American presence and the Zionists," Ahmadinejad told worshippers at Tehran University in an event broadcast live on state television.
The Iranian leader, whose own authority is under challenge from hardliners as well as reformers, was restating Tehran's familiar goals as the Middle East undergoes a very different upheaval from the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed Shah and brought Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to power.
"Saving the existence of the Zionist regime (Israel) is a joint commitment by most arrogant Western governments," Ahmadinejad said in a speech to mark the annual Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day decreed by Khomeini and held on the last Friday of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan.
He called for Muslim unity to foil Western support for Israel, which he described as a "cancerous tumour" for its occupation of Palestinian land.
But there was little unity on display at an Islamic summit in Mecca earlier this week when the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation suspended Syria despite Iran's objections.
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