Mr. Speaker, yesterday I had the opportunity to address a similar question which, just to remind my colleagues, goes back to the incident related to Zahra Kazemi, the Canadian photojournalist. A little over two years ago she was arrested in Iran for the grave crime of taking a picture outside of a prison. A couple of days after her arrest it was announced that in fact she had died.
The muted requests for information from the government at that point received a response that first said she may have had a stroke. Yes, if someone is hit in the head enough times that person will have more than a stroke. The person will expire. When the excuse of her having a stroke sounded very bizarre and silly, it was then suggested that during the interrogation she must have fallen and maybe hit her head against a table. The fact was that she had been killed during the interrogation process.
At that time the position of the official opposition was that the government had to be very vigorous and robust and had to take significant action to get justice, not just for Ms. Kazemi but for her son, her family, all Canadians and all human beings when one thinks about it. The government was very muted. In situations like this, when dealing with repressive regimes the government has a philosophy of always taking the route of the appeaser.
History shows that tyrants and dictators cannot be appeased. They interpret that as a sign of weakness and do not respect what is being done.
This dragged on. There were responses here and there from the government but nothing that was robust and vigorous. We suggested, first, that the ambassador be brought home, as any self-respecting country would do; and second, that the United Nations put together a coalition of other countries in terms of dealing with this and demand a clear judicial process with a Canadian presence in observer status. These are minimum requirements. None of that was done. The question was simply, “Could you please tell us what happened? Isn't this awful”, and huffing and puffing.
Just last November there was a secret meeting between Canadian officials and the surgeon who did the autopsy of Ms. Kazemi. What was revealed in November only to government officials and not to the public was that Ms. Kazemi had been wrongly arrested, which of course we know, tortured, raped and murdered.
What was the government's response in the month of November? Our ambassador, who had only been brought home temporarily, not pulled out of Iran as a sign that all countries understood that this was a serious matter, our ambassador at that point was sent back to Iran to “normalize relations” on something as abnormal as this.
I asked the Prime Minister why that action was taken, why it was so muted and why it was so contradictory to what should have been done, which was to stand up for someone's right to live. This was broached. This was taken away and she was robbed. The Prime Minister said that it was done to protect the doctor. The doctor who did the autopsy was already in safe asylum. That was not a response. There was no reason that this process happened in this muted, weak, appeasing way and we demand to know why the ambassador was sent back.