Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
DFAIT’s spinning on Syria and sanctions
If Canada believes its sanctions are effective, it should be able to say so
Foreign Affairs flies into action on the Zahra Kazemi case: “We are concerned that a very negative story might be published on the basis of the above allegations.”
Last November, I published a story about an Iranian exile by the name of Behnam Vafaseresht who claimed to have been jailed at the Evin Prison in Tehran at the same time that Canadian journalist Zahra Kazemi was held and eventually murdered there. Vafaseresht said he had information implicating Saeed Mortazavi, the prosecutor general of Tehran, in Kazemi’s death.
Foreign Affairs: pursuing all channels to protect Canadians, as long as it doesn’t involve leaving the embassy compound
Canadian freelance journalist Amanda Lindhout has been held captive in Somalia since August. In January, her Somali colleague Abdifatah Mohammad Elmi, was released. The CBC’s David McGuffin tracked him down in Kenya, where he revealed that no one from the Canadian government has been in touch since his release.