Tehran — Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi has apparently been barred from representing the family of Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi who died in custody, a spokesman for her human rights centre said Saturday.
Mohammad Ali Dadkhah, one of four lawyers representing Ms. Kazemi's family, said an invitation from the court to attend a hearing next month did not mention Ms. Ebadi's name.
“That Ebadi's name is not among the list of lawyers invited for the next hearing means that the judiciary has barred her from representing the family at the court,” Mr. Dadkhah said.
In November, a criminal court had accepted Ms. Ebadi's request to represent Ms. Kazemi's family.
Iranian human rights Shirin Ebadi was last year's Nobel laureate and the first Muslim to receive the award. She will not be representing the family of Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi in court. (John Lehmann/The Globe and Mail)
Judiciary officials and Ms. Ebadi were not available for comment Saturday.
Ms. Ebadi won the 2003 Nobel peace prize for her advocacy of human rights and democracy in Iran.
The two other lawyers invited by the court were Mohammad Seifzadeh and Abdolfattah Soltani.
Ms. Kazemi, a Canadian of Iranian origin, was arrested June 23, 2003, while taking photographs during a protest by families of prisoners outside a Tehran jail. She died nearly three weeks after the arrest.
Authorities had initially denied that Ms. Kazemi was killed, claiming she had died of a stroke. Later, however, a presidential-appointed committee found that Ms. Kazemi had died of a fractured skull and brain hemorrhage due to a blow to the head.
Intelligence Ministry agent Mohammad Reza Aghdam Ahmadi was charged with beating her to death. His trial opened last October but the second session has been postponed several times for reasons not made public.
Mr. Dadkhah, who is also a spokesman for the Centre for Protecting Human Rights co-founded by Ms. Ebadi, said the second session is now scheduled for July 17.
Ms. Kazemi's son, Stephen Hachemi, who lives in Montreal, said last month he believed Ms. Ebadi would be powerless to ensure justice for his mother and called on the Canadian government to get more involved.
He has repeatedly urged the federal government to pressure Iran to allow an independent Canadian court monitor to observe the trial.
Canada criticized the handling of the Kazemi case and threatened to impose sanctions. It withdrew its ambassador to Iran after Ms. Kazemi's body was buried in Iran against the wishes of her son and Canadian authorities. Canadian Ambassador Philip Mackinnon later returned to Iran and attended the opening of the trial.
