Canada condemns closure of human rights centre in Iran
Last Updated: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 | 11:30 AM ET
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Canada has joined international condemnation of Iran's closure of a prominent human rights centre in Tehran.
Iranian police shut down the Defenders of Human Rights Centre on Sunday just before it was preparing to mark the 60th anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
"Canada is seriously concerned about the raid and closing," Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said in a statement released Monday.
The minister noted that the centre in the Iranian capital "is an important non-governmental organization that courageously defends prisoners of conscience and documents human rights violations in Iran."
Cannon's office said the timing of the police raid "is particularly disturbing" and called on Iran "to fully respect all of its human rights obligations" and to let the centre reopen immediately.
The centre is headed by Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner.
Threatened, jailed and banned
The founder and leader of the Association for Support of Children's Rights in Iran, Ebadi has written extensively about human rights. She has been threatened, jailed and banned from practising law in Iran.
France, which currently holds the presidency of the European Union, also condemned the Tehran closure.
Bernard Kouchner, France's Foreign Minister, said the EU condemns the closure "in the strongest possible terms."
Amnesty International questioned the move, as well, calling it an "extremely ominous development" that threatens all of the human rights movement in Iran.
"It is unclear why the Iranian security authorities decided to act against the centre now," Amnesty said in a statement on its website.
Amnesty said the move appears to be aimed at sending "a powerful — and chilling — warning to Iran's growing movement of human rights activists and defenders."
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