IRB So Incredibly Ill Prepared To Judge?

Of all those requesting consideration for refugee status, one might assume that anyone of Iranian origin who had defied the regime might be considered a shoe-in for acceptance. Yet the Immigration and Refugee Board claimed to have found Behzad Khalilzdeh's account of the potential danger he faces in returning to the country of his birth questionable.

He was a newspaperman in Tehran, a reporter with a penchant for writing the truth. And the truth was, as he discovered, dangerous enough that even without it having been published, his life was endangered because of information he had received which damned the government.

It was, in fact, the truth revealed to him by a confidential insider source in the government that the death of photojournalist Zahra Kazemi in Evin prison was not as claimed by Iran's vice-president, an unfortunate death due to stroke. The Iranian-Canadian, on a fact-finding mission in Tehran, had been arrested as a spy, imprisoned, tortured, raped and murdered.

And it was just these details that Behzad Khalilzadeh had written of and was prepared to have published under his byline. His editor at the paper, no doubt thinking of his own survival and that of the paper, thought otherwise, and withheld the story. Which did not stop security agents of the government from visiting Mr. Khalilzadeh to threaten him.

"They said, 'If you want to put this in the paper, we are going to kill you', they said they were going to put me in jail for life. They threatened me. I was scared of them." And so he hid, then fled to Turkey, from there travelled to Canada on a forged passport, and declared himself a refugee. Feeling that his link to a story that had headlined in Canada would garner him support.

"I came because this is a free country. I thought they would believe me and help me and appreciate what I did", he said. But the Immigration and Refugee Board claim that his account lacked evidence. Incredibly, they refused to believe that Iran would still - eight years after the event that brought Canada and Iran to a counter-accusing match at the UN - seek him out on return.

On appeal to the Federal Court of Canada, the case was dismissed. "It was reasonable for the panel to find that there was no tangible evidence that the Iranian authorities were looking for the applicant ... and that, even if this were the case, no evidence was put forward regarding the nature of the penalties that the applicant would face today", wrote Federal Court Justice Luc Martineau.

It's hard to believe that the IRB officials and a justice of the Federal Court live such protected lives. Have they not extended one iota of curiosity to inform themselves of the situation of those in Iran who earn the wrath of the authorities? Are they completely oblivious to this police state that subjugates and oppresses its people, and threatens its neighbours?

"Anybody who [the Iranian authorities] believe had the slightest information on this situation would be pursued. Back in those days, when this was happening, it is impossible not to believe he wouldn't be targeted. Even today they would be targeted because [Iran] is trying to change their story on what happened", Lawyer Annie Belanger.

This appears an obvious case where the minister responsible, Jason Kenney, should be intervening on behalf of Mr. Khalilzadeh.