Zahra "Ziba" Kazemi-Ahmadabadi (زهرا کاظمی احمدآبادی) is a journalist who was born in Iran and later got a dual citizenship with Canada. On June 23rd, 2003, she was arrested for taking pictures in front of the Evin prison where photography is prohibited. From Wikipedia, "The Evin prison staff, say that she had been in a sensitive area, photographing parts of the prison, even though she insisted that she had not photographed any part of the prison, but only the street and the demonstrators — who were family members of activist students jailed in the prison."

She died nineteen days later, the prison staff claiming that she had fainted and hit her head, however some believe that she was beaten to death, which caused some diplomatic strain between Iran and Canada. Trials have been held in Iran on and off throughout 2003, most of which are considered to be a farce from Canadian diplomats.

A few days ago, Shahram Azam was granted political asylum in Canada. Formerly a physician on the staff of the Iranian Ministry of Defence, he says he examined Zahra Kazemi four days after her arrest. "Her entire body carried strange marks of violence," Dr. Azam said. "She had a big bruise on the right side of her forehead stretching down to the ear. The ear drum was intact, but the membrane in one of her ears had recently burst, and a loose blood vessel could be seen. Behind the head, on the left-hand side, was a big, loose swelling. Three deep scratches behind her neck looked like the result of nails digging into the flesh. The right shoulder was bruised, and on the left hand two fingers were broken. Three fingers had broken nails or no nails."

There was also evidence that Zahra Kazemi has been whipped, raped, had her toes crushed, and so on. From the Globe and mail:

"The first time I set eyes on her, she was an unconscious woman lying under a sheet on a stretcher with just a bruise on her forehead," he recalled. "Acting on the diagnosis sent from the prison clinic, a nurse tried to pass a tube to her stomach through her nose, but we discovered that the nose bone had been broken."

Hours after being admitted on June 27, Ms. Kazemi was declared brain-dead. She was kept on life support for another two weeks.

On July 10, Canada's Foreign Affairs Department summoned Iran's ambassador to a meeting, at which it demanded both independent medical treatment and an investigation into Ms. Kazemi's injuries. On July 11 she was taken off life support. Her death was announced the next day by Iran's Ministry of Information. There was no mention of violence as the cause of death.

Ms. Kazemi's family immediately requested that her body be returned to Canada for autopsy and burial. Instead, she was hastily buried in her city of birth, Shiraz, in southern Iran.

Soon after, Ms. Kazemi's mother testified that she had been forced by authorities to sign a document authorizing the burial.

Dr. Azam cited their words: "It is not clear whether death was caused by a hard object hitting the head or by the head hitting a hard object."

Given that Ms. Kazemi's entire body was testimony to the use of torture, Dr. Azam said, he felt he had no choice but to find a way to tell the truth. He knew he couldn't do this in Iran. "I'd meet a fate as bad as hers. I discussed it with my wife, and we both agreed that we should leave."

He and his wife of 19 years, Forouzan, made the decision together, he said. The tale of their escape reads like the plot of an espionage thriller.

Bound by the rule that bars military men from leaving Iran except on official duty, Dr. Azam had to find an excuse to seek special permission to go abroad without arousing suspicion.

The chronic injury he'd suffered as a 15-year-old soldier in the Iran-Iraq war solved the problem. He was allowed to seek special treatment in the West on condition that he left the deeds of the family house in Tehran as collateral.

Dr. Azam used Sweden, where he has family, as a base to wait for a courier who would take out of Iran documents that prove his case. Meanwhile, he was searching for Ms. Kazemi's son, Stephan Hashemi.

"I did not tell the Swedish immigration authorities the full story. I wasn't sure that it wouldn't leak to the Iranians. I was set on coming to Canada to testify in court."

The months of uncertainty he spent in Sweden, without police protection, waiting for his asylum application to be processed, were far from easy, he said.