Documentary deepens rift between Iran and Canada

The Vancouver Sun, Antagonism is deepening between Canada and Iran over failed attempts to derail the Ottawa screening of a film exposing the Iranian government's pursuit of nuclear weapons and terrorism.

At issue now is whether the Iranians will retaliate.

The already-sour relations worsened Wednesday when Heritage Minister James Moore ordered Library and Archives Canada to show the documentary Iranium.

"The documentary Iranium will be shown at Library & Archives Canada. New time & date to be announced soon. The show will go on," Moore tweeted Wednesday.

DECISION OVERTURNED

The ministerial command overturns a Library and Archives' decision to cancel Tuesday's planned showing after the agency received anonymous phone calls vowing a violent protest if the documentary ran.

The threats followed a formal complaint on the weekend from the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran about the screening. Officials at the embassy, which does not have full status and has no ambassador, have not responded to calls for comment.

"This really adds more ammunition to the kind of difficult relations between the two countries and maybe it's going to have some impact on the function of the Canadian Embassy in Iran. It's certainly an escalation," said Houchang Hassan-Yari, an expert on Iran and head of the department of politics and economics at the Royal Military College in Kingston.

"It gives more ammunition to those in Iran who say, 'We told you the Canadians were this and that' ... in other words, discrediting the whole notion of the human rights question raised by the Canadian government," before the United Nations and elsewhere, he said.

FREE SPEECH ISSUE

Moore earlier criticized Library and Archives, a federal Crown agency, for cancelling the screening.

"The principle of free speech is one of the cornerstones of our democracy," Moore's office said in a prepared statement. "Canada does not accept attempts from the Iranian Embassy to dictate what films will, and will not be shown in Canada."

Pauline Portelance, a spokeswoman for Library and Archives, said the Iranian Embassy sent a letter to the institution on the weekend asking that the screening be cancelled. The request was denied. Then, people -- whom Portelance described as "members of the public" -- started phoning Library and Archives complaining about the screening and threatening to protest. "The threats were getting too serious," she said. Only then was a decision made to cancel the screening. The Iranium row is the latest in a series of diplomatic shots between the two nations since Iranian-born Montreal photojournalist Zahra Kazemi was beaten to death in a Tehran prison in 2003.

Soon after her death and a formal Canadian protest over the killing, Iran accused police in B.C. of the "criminal" death of an 18-year-old Iranian shot and killed by a police officer after allegedly lunging at the plainclothes officer with a machete. Iranian media portrayed the incident as an example of government and police oppression of Iranian immigrants.

Tehran insisted on a rapid, transparent inquiry with wording that mirrored the Canadian government's demands for an investigation into the death of Kazemi, 54, and the prosecution of those responsible.

While both countries still maintain embassies, Iran expelled Canada's ambassador in December 2007. Last month, Iran warned its citizens to take precautions when travelling in Canada after the fatal shooting of Iranian-Canadian Yazdan Ghiasvand Ghiasi, 16, in Ottawa. Iran's foreign ministry also sent a note to the Canadian counterpart urging that the perpetrators be punished.

Since the Kazemi affair, Canada has downgraded Iran's diplomatic status, refused to allow Tehran to post an ambassador to Ottawa, imposed economic sanctions, led UN resolutions condemning Iran's human rights record, banned direct air links, and banned the opening of Iranian consulates and cultural centres elsewhere in Canada.

DEFENDED BLOGGER

More recently, Canada has condemned Iran's imprisonment of Iranian-Canadian blogger Hossein Derakhshan and the brutal death sentence against Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, whose case has attracted the attention of Laureen Harper.

Her husband, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, used the Wall Street Journal last year to characterize the country as "evil."

The Harper government also has considered listing Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a banned terrorist entity, a move that would permit Canada to target the elite military unit's financial dealings and to make it a crime to assist the group.

Documents obtained through an access-to-information request reveal the prospect was the subject of a memo earlier this year to Public Safety Minister Vic Toews. It notes the IRGC is separate from the rest of Iran's armed forces, operating its own navy, army, air force and elite special forces known as the Quds Force.

It also reports directly to the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, meaning that any move by Ottawa to label it a terror group would amount to "the Canadian government ... accusing at least part of the Iranian state of being directly involved in terrorism," said Hassan-Yari.