Zahra Kazemi's son can sue Iran but her estate can't
Zahra Kazemi was an Iranian-Canadian journalist who was beaten, raped and killed in 2003 after being arrested in Iran for photographing relatives of detainees outside Evin prison in Tehran. She was never formally charged with any crime and was quickly buried in Iran.
Her son, Stephan Hashemi has tried unsuccessfully to have his mother's body repatriated. In 2006, Hashemi launched a civil suit in Canada against the Iranian government, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Saeed Mortazavi, Iran's prosecutor general, and Mohammad Bakhshi, a prison official, after the Iranian courts failed to convict anyone of the crime. Lawyers of Iranian government sought dismissal of the suit based on Canada's Canada's State Immunity Act that protects foreign governments. But lawyers for Hashemi, the Canadian Centre for International Justice and Amnesty International Canada argued the case must be allowed to go forward in the interest of justice, and to condemn torture and abuse of human rights.
Five years after Hashemi's suit, a Quebec judge ruled this week that the estate of Zahra Kazemi can't sue Iran because of Canada's State Immunity Act (protecting foreign governments), but Stephan Hashemi can continue his civil suit because of a provision in the same act.
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