Zahra Kazemi, Ten Years Later

Zahra Kazemi, Ten Years Later

A decade after Zahra Kazemi's death on July 11th 2003, her case remains one of the more shocking incidents inside Iran's prisons. Kazemi, an Iranian-Canadian photo journalist, had been arrested outside Evin prison where she intended to photograph visiting families of protesters held inside. Less than three weeks later she died of a skull fracture at a military hospital, with signs she had been raped and tortured, according to a former Defense Ministry doctor. Kazemi's brutal death caused an uproar as key members of President Mohammad Khamtami's reformist administration pointed fingers at the police and prison officials. Tehran Prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi was widely rumored to have been directly responsible for Kazemi's death. That's the same Mortazavi who was fined $60 last week in a trial where he was the prime suspect in the deaths of three individuals involved in the 2009 post-election protests.