The extraordinary case of Zahra Kazemi, a 54-year-old photographer with both Iranian and Canadian citizenship, has exposed the operation of shadowy security services in Iran and brought international condemnation on the government. Two weeks ago a U.N. committee passed a resolution, drafted by the Canadian government, slamming Iran for human-rights violations. Perhaps more importantly, Kazemi’s death has sparked a major fight between the reformist-dominated majlis, or Parliament, and the hard-line judiciary. Analysts say the dispute is not just about how the Kazemi case gets resolved. There is a larger issue at stake–namely, next February’s parliamentary elections. “Kazemi has become a very important domestic issue,” says a Tehran-based Western diplomat. “If there is a sense that justice isn’t being done, the reformists could lose a lot of support.”
Some basic facts about the case are no longer in dispute. On June 23, Kazemi, who had a work permit from the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, was arrested while taking photographs of detainees’ families outside the notorious Evin prison in north Tehran. She was accused of spying, but denied the charge. During the initial four days of interrogation by various security agencies, including the Ministry of Intelligence and Public Prosecutor’s Office, Kazemi was hit on the head with a blunt object, which resulted in her death on July 10. Issa Saharkhiz, editor of the reformist magazine Aftab, was himself in Evin prison shortly after Kazemi was beaten. He asked prison authorities why she had been detained. “A picture taken outside of the prison is not a strong case for spying,” he says. “It was only an excuse to arrest her. Various groups wanted to claim she was bringing money from foreign organizations to journalists and local newspapers. But they could not get this confession.”
A report issued in early November by the Parliament’s Article 90 Commission, responsible for investigating complaints against the government, claimed Kazemi had received the fatal blow while in the custody of judiciary officials. Mortazavi, the report said, had tried to cover up the killing by forcing witnesses to change their testimony. The report infuriated members of the judiciary who’d already started proceedings against a Ministry of Intelligence agent in early October. That trial, set to resume in late December, has been dismissed by critics, including President Mohammed Khatami, as an attempt to shift blame away from the real culprits. “Why aren’t all the people who were involved in this matter, particularly those who ordered a Culture Ministry official to announce she died of a stroke, being questioned?” Khatami said, referring to Mortazavi.
Conservatives in the government accuse the reformists of grandstanding for political gain. They argue that, with parliamentary elections looming, the reformists are confronting the judiciary as a means of showing the public they still have teeth. “This case has become a political matter,” says Mohammed Mohammedi, a conservative parliamentarian. “Reformists know they’re going to lose the next elections. So they’ve focused on this case as a means of getting publicity. Mr. Mortazavi did nothing wrong.”
Iran’s reformists do seem to have lost some political momentum. They were trounced in local council elections last February, when only a fraction of voters, 11 percent in Tehran, cast their ballots. Such voter apathy, say analysts, was a clear sign that the public has begun to lose faith in the reform movement. Analysts say that unless the reformists can point to a high-profile achievement, such as a transparent resolution of the Kazemi case or even the removal of Mortazavi, they may be soundly defeated in the parliamentary elections. “The reformists know they have to do something,” says one analyst in Tehran. “But the conservatives are much more confident. They stand a better chance in the elections.”
Even so, members of the judiciary acknowledge they’ve taken a public-relations hit on the Kazemi case, and have been trying to soften the blow. In early November Morteza Bakhtiari, head of the National Department of Prisons, announced, at the behest of the judiciary, that solitary-confinement cells would be abolished from all prisons in the country. And Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi-Shahroudi, the head of the judiciary, made a rare public appearance at a Nov. 22 student gathering at Tehran University. There, he said additional changes may be forthcoming. Among those under consideration: judges may be asked to commute prison sentences and to reduce the length of detentions. In addition, lawyers may be required to attend all phases of a detainee’s interrogation.
It remains to be seen whether these promises will be carried out. Meanwhile, the judiciary must decide how to handle Mortazavi. “What’s important to us is that a tragedy took place,” says government spokesman Abdullah Ramezanzadeh, a reformist close to Khatami. “We only ask that an independent and legitimate investigation of this case take place. Whether someone gets pushed aside from their post isn’t the point. The truth needs to come out, and justice must be served.” If only everyone in power in Iran hewed to those noble goals.
