Author arrested after challenging Iranian's president's Holocaust denials

zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org
Thu May 11 07:11:25 EDT 2006







Publication: 	Ottawa Citizen; 		Date: 	May 4, 2006; 
		Section: 	Front Page; 		Page: 	1


Iran detains Canadian scholar
Author arrested after challenging president's Holocaust denials
BY ALEXANDRA ZABJEK

     A prominent Iranian-Canadian scholar is being detained in Iran 
after writing an article earlier this year in which he challenged 
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's contention that the Holocaust 
was a myth.

     Ramin Jahanbegloo was arrested at Tehran airport several days ago 
after he and his family returned from an extended visit to India, BBC 
News reported last night.

     Foreign Affairs declined comment yesterday, and would not confirm 
news reports of Mr. Jahanbegloo's arrest.

     However, news of the arrest is making its away through Canada's 
expatriate Iranian community.

     Shahram Golestaneh, president of the Committee for the Defence of 
Human Rights in Iran, is urging the Canadian government to take 
immediate action to secure Mr. Jahanbegloo's release.

     "Quiet diplomacy won't work," he said yesterday, adding that 
Iranian authorities will respond only to direct pressure or threats.

     "We don't want to have the same situation as it was with Zahra 
Kazemi. If we have to do something earlier rather than later, we 
should do it," he said. "If even one citizen is at stake, we should 
put all of our forces behind him to get his release."

     Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi died in Iranian 
custody on July 11, 2003, almost three weeks after she was arrested 
for taking pictures outside a prison during a student protest in 
Tehran.

     At first, Iran's official news agency reported that Ms. Kazemi 
had died in hospital, after suffering a stroke while she was being 
interrogated. But Mohammad Ali Abtahi, Iran's vice-president, 
conceded a few days later that Ms. Kazemi died as a result of being 
beaten.

     In Tehran yesterday, a prominent dissident cleric said Mr. 
Jahanbegloo's arrest was "the height of lawlessness."

     Mohsen Kadivar, who has spent time behind bars himself as a human 
rights activist, described Mr. Jahanbegloo as one of Iran's leading 
philosophical journalists.

     "In a country fighting for respect of law and freedom of the 
press for more than 100 years, still we have a well-known figure 
who's arrested without a proper court order or an open trial, and 
they don't even announce that he's been arrested," said Mr. Kadivar.

     Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said he had 
heard about the detention of a Canadian national from the Canadian 
ambassador, the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday. Mr. Asefi said 
the matter was under investigation.

     Mr. Jahanbegloo's article on the Holocaust appeared in the 
Spanish newspaper El Pais. In another recent article published on the 
Internet, he called on Iran and the West to exercise caution in the 
escalating war of words over Tehran's nuclear activities.

     While Mr. Jahanbegloo's academic work was critical of the current 
Iranian regime, he appeared more interested in "reform than 
revolution," said Amir Hassanpour, a Middle Eastern studies professor 
at the University of Toronto.

     Mr. Jahanbegloo advocated reforming Iranian politics through the 
development of civil society and legal reforms, said Mr. Hassanpour.

     Mr. Jahanbegloo has written and edited several books on 
philosophy and political science. He worked as an adjunct professor 
at the University of Toronto from 1999 to 2001, after first arriving 
there in 1997 as a visiting scholar.

     Born in Tehran, Mr. Jahanbegloo received his PhD from the 
Sorbonne before completing a post-doctorate degree at Harvard 
University, and then moving to Toronto.

     He had published two books in English, including Conversations 
with Isaiah Berlin, which detailed his interviews with the the famed 
political philosopher. In 2001, he edited a collection of essays 
titled Iran: Between Tradition and Modernity.

     Mr. Jahanbegloo, who holds Canadian citizenship, has also 
published extensively in French and Persian. He was most recently 
working at the Cultural Research Bureau, a non-governmental research 
organization in Tehran.

     His arrest could make relations between Canada and Iran even 
frostier. There has been little official contact between the two 
countries since the death of Ms. Kazemi.

     The Iranian government charged an Iranian security agent in Ms. 
Kazemi's death, but he was acquitted of "quasiintentional murder." In 
July 2004, Iran's judiciary said the head injuries that killed Ms. 
Kazemi were the result of an "accident."

     But Canadians were shocked in March 2005 by the stunning 
revelations of Shahram Azam, a former staff physician in Iran's 
defence ministry. He said he examined Ms. Kazemi in hospital, four 
days after her arrest, and found obvious signs of torture, including 
evidence of a very brutal rape, a skull fracture, two broken fingers, 
missing fingernails, a crushed big toe and a broken nose.

     Mr. Azam left Iran in August 2004, saying he was seeking medical 
treatment in Finland. He later went to Sweden and got in touch with 
Ms. Kazemi's son, Stephan Hachemi. With the help of Canadian lawyers, 
Mr. Hachemi helped Mr. Azam and his family get to Canada. He was 
granted landed immigrant status as a refugee sponsored by the 
government of Canada.

     In an article he wrote last year for the New York Times, Liberal 
MP Michael Ignatieff related how he was invited to lecture on human 
rights and democracy by the Cultural Research Bureau, an independent 
centre in Tehran that publishes books.

     "My Iranian host, Ramin Jahanbegloo, works in a tiny shared 
office at the bureau, invited foreign guests and building up a small 
circle of freeminded students whom he lectures on European thought," 
wrote Mr. Ignatieff.

     "Jahanbegloo says he thinks of himself as a bridge between Iran 
and (western) universities.

     "He invites a steady stream of philosophers like Richard Rorty 
from Stanford and Agnes Heller from the New School in New York to 
give talks to students.

     "He sees some signs that their ideas are gaining a toehold in 
Tehran." WITH FILES FROM CITIZEN NEWS SERVICES

=====

NEWSHA TAVAKOLIAN, POLARIS Ramin Jahanbegloo, pictured in a Tehran 
park, works for an Iranian non-governmental organization concerned 
with education, media, youth, government and the environment.


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