Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon says Ottawa will continue to press for access to Iranian-Canadian Hossein Derakhshan, after two free expression groups reported the influential blogger may face the death penalty in Tehran.
Derakhshan, who is known for criticizing the Iranian government online and for precipitating the blogging movement in his native country, was arrested and jailed in 2008 shortly after he flew back to Tehran.
His trial began in June, and on Tuesday, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression and PEN Canada said the 35-year-old could soon be sentenced to death.
Cannon said that although the Iranian regime does not recognize Derakhshan's Canadian citizenship, federal officials "will continue to press the Iranian authorities for access, as we have in similar cases involving dual nationals in other jurisdictions."
Ottawa has been in contact with Iranian authorities since Derakhshan's arrest nearly two years ago, Cannon told CTV.ca, "including by diplomatic note and through high level meetings, to seek consular access.
"Canada continues to urge Iran to fully respect all of its human rights obligations, both in law and in practice and we continue to condemn their blatant disregard for the human rights of their own people," he added, in a statement issued from New York City.
Derakhshan moved to Canada in 2000 to attend university. A year later he posted instructions online explaining how to blog in Farsi, which led to a surge of blogging in the Islamic Republic. It also earned Derakhshan the nickname "blogfather."
Not much is known about the details of Derakhshan's trial due to the secretive nature of the Iranian judicial system. But according to the BBC, he is being tried on a range of charges that include insulting the Prophet Muhammad, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, co-operating with hostile government, spreading propaganda and making obscene websites.
News that the prosecution has sought the death sentence in the case was described as "a travesty" by CJFE's President Arnold Amber.
"Action must be taken right away because in Iran there is not necessarily a lengthy period before executions can be carried out. We are very concerned," Amber said in a statement on Tuesday, which called on Ottawa to intervene in the case.
Derakhshan is known in the blogosphere by the name of his controversial website Hoder.com. In many of his postings the former newspaper reporter turned "citizen journalist" criticized Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
In 2006, Derakhshan also described travelling in Israel on his Canadian passport, praising the country's democratic system and musing that going there could have serious consequences.
"This might mean that I won't be able to go back to Iran for a long time, since Iran doesn't recognise Israel... and apparently considers travelling there illegal. Too bad, but I don't care," he said at the time. "As a citizen journalist, I'm going to show my 20,000 daily Iranian readers what Israel really looks like and how people live there."
But Derakhshan also gave Iran's controversial president credit for actions he approved of. In the years leading up to his arrest, he even seemed to lean towards supporting Ahmadinejad's hardline stance towards the West. He also defended Iran's nuclear ambitions against U.S. and Israeli opposition.
His blog postings ceased in the fall of 2008 when he was arrested and jailed by Iranian authorities.
Two Canadian journalists have been imprisoned or killed in Iran in recent years.
Last summer, Iranian-Canadian Newsweek correspondent Maziar Bahari was imprisoned in Tehran in the period of unrest that followed presidential elections there. He was later released.
In July 2003, Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi died in Iran's infamous Evin prison, which led to tense relations between Ottawa and Tehran.
