The enemies, he said, are trying every possible means to separate the people from the Islamic system.
Mohammad you idiot! We could care less who you worship(or even IF you worship) or how you worship god/gods. All we ask(no demand) is that you don't go around killing our people. You stop going around acting like our enemy and making incredibly moronic statements like this and we'll get along fine...don't do this and well we're going to have a problem...And you don't want that!
Questions Arise in Iran Journalist Death
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer
TEHRAN, Iran - A hard-line Tehran prosecutor coerced an official to announce a false cause of death — a stroke — for an Iranian-Canadian journalist who died in police custody, the official said in a letter made public Thursday.
Tehran Prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi has been blamed by Iranian reformers for the death of journalist Zahra Kazemi, who was interrogated for 77 hours by police before being taken to an emergency room where she died weeks later — of a head injury, according to a presidential investigation.
The July 10 death of Kazemi, who was arrested while photographing anti-government protests last month, has raised a bitter dispute among Iran's reformists and hard-liners — and the government's handling of the case prompted Canada to announce the recall of its ambassador Wednesday.
The accusation that Mortazavi pushed the story that Kazemi died of a stroke came in a letter from Mohammad Hussein Khoshvaqt, head of the foreign press department at Iran's Culture Ministry and the official responsible for giving a press card to Kazemi.
Khoshvaqt wrote that the prosecutor accused Kazemi of being a spy and threatened to bring charges against Khoshvaqt for "issuing permission for a spy to work."
Mortazavi "asked me to write what he dictated to me. He raised several issues including ... death due to brain stroke. ... Then he got it typed on a paper with a Culture Ministry emblem. Got me to sign it and sent it" to the official Islamic Republic News Agency, Khoshvaqt's letter said.
Khoshvaqt said he was effectively held hostage at Mortazavi's office and allowed to leave only after IRNA ran the story.
Koshvaqt's letter, addressed to Parliamentary Speaker Mahdi Karroubi, was published Thursday in the reformist paper Yas-e-Nou. Ali Reza Shiravi, an official at the Culture Ministry, confirmed the authenticity of the letter to The Associated Press.
The hard-line Islamic clerics who hold sway in Iran control the judiciary and prosecutors offices. Khoshvaqt's letter came amid accusations that the hard-liners are trying to cover up the circumstances of Kazemi's death.
Mortazavi is widely believed to had pushed for a quiet burial of Kazemi soon after her death, but presidential investigators stepped in to prevent the burial until investigations were complete.
Iran's Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi then said Kazemi died of a beating, nearly three weeks after she was arrested.
The presidential committee that investigated the death said Kazemi, 54, had complained of punishment from her guards and eventually died of a "fractured skull, brain hemorrhage and its consequences resulting from a hard object hitting the head or the head hitting a hard object."
On Wednesday, Kazemi was buried in her birthplace, the southern Iranian city of Shiraz, against the wishes of her son, Stephan Hachemi, who lives in Montreal, and the Canadian government.
Iran described Canada's decision to recall its ambassador as "unacceptable," IRNA reported late Wednesday.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran, in accordance with its responsibilities, is resolved to investigate the circumstances of this grave incident. In any case, we hope that Canada will refrain from taking any hasty and irrational measures that could complicate the situation," IRNA quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi as saying.
On Wednesday, Iran's pro-reform president, Mohammad Khatami, called for an open trial of those behind the death. "Any person who is a culprit anywhere should be punished and the issue clarified," Khatami told reporters.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030724/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_canada_journalist_16