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Canada’s magazine

Five hanged in Tehran

I was out of the office when this atrocity took place. I’d be remiss, however, not to bring it to your attention even a week late. The five activists were murdered at Evin Prison, where Canadian Zahra Kazemi spent her last days alive. Four were Kurds. A widespread strike in protest of the executions shut down many of the Kurdish towns and cities in northwest Iran.

Tehran’s Toronto front: The Canadian government responds

The Iranian chargé d’affaires was called in by Foreign Affairs today to discuss the “Center for Iranian Studies,” an institution in Toronto that describes itself as a non-governmental organization promoting Iranian culture and scholarship.

Professor promoted by Iranian government ‘study centre’ has his say: “I am absolutely against the Iranian fascist dictatorship regime.”

Mahdi Tourage is among three scholars and a director promoted by an Iranian government-linked institution in Toronto that portrays itself as non-partisan study centre. The “Center for Iranian Studies” on Sheppard Ave. W. was founded by Iran’s former cultural attaché in Ottawa and is still funded by the embassy here. On its website, it links to departments at the University of Toronto, McGill, and Concordia – although it has no affiliation with any of them. Of the four individuals it promotes, three – Richard Foltz, Soheil Parsa, and now Mahdi Tourage –  have confirmed that they have nothing to do with the centre. It’s a safe bet that the fourth doesn’t either.

‘I’ve seen death. But Neda’s innocence, the injustice of her death, and her gaze before she passed away means I can never heal.’

The Iranian doctor who tried to save Neda Soltan’s life after she was shot by Iranian government goons last summer, speaks from exile in Britain.