From: Ismail Zayid
To: Globe & Mail

Sent: Monday, July 10, 2000 10:52 PM

Subject: The Trial of Jewish and Muslim Iranians.

 

Canada Palestine Association
P.O.Box 1085
Halifax, NS. B3J 2X1

Tel: 902.429.9100
902.275.4898

July 10, 2000

The Editor,
The Globe & Mail
Toronto,ON.

 

Dear Editor:

Re: The trial of Jewish & Muslim Iranians on the charge of spying.

The stements by Mr. Ed Morgan, the Canadian Jewish Congress {July 10}and Mr. Axworthy, amongst others, make interesting reading. I,for one, do not have any substantive evidence to judge how fair or otherwise was this trial. However, I doubt if any of the accusers have this evidence. Interestingly, none of these statements relate that 13 Jewish and 4 Muslim Iranians were tried for spying and three Jewish and two Muslim Iranians were aquitted.

Mr. Morgan states that they were tried for "love of Israel", as if Israeli agents would never engage in spying. We do not have to look very far from our borders to see the evidence. Mr. Pollard, an American Jew, is still serving sentence for spying for Israel against his own country. This week alone an Israeli agent has been convicted for spying in Switzerland, and there have been many others.

The question that astonishes me is that all those calling this trial flawed are also speaking of violation of human rights and proper legal process. Yet, I do not recall hearing any of them raising a whisper about the thousands of Palestinians who have been held for years and tortured in Israeli prisons in "Administrative Detention" ,without trial or charge. Nor do I recall any expressions of concern from these accusers about the thousands of Palestinian prisoners sentenced in Israeli military courts to lengthy impisonment on the basis of confessions obtained under torture and written in Hebrew, a language the prisoners do not know. Futrhermore, these convictions are obtained with no charges or evidence offered to their Jewish lawyers. All this has been repeatedly documented and condemned by Israeli Jewish lawyers like Felicia Langer and Lea Tsemel, and repeatedly documented by B’Tselem,the Israeli Human Rights Organisation and The Israeli Commission for Civil and Human rights, amongst many international human rights bodies. For years Israel continues to hold,as a hostage, Sheikh Obeid who was kidnapped in Lebanon and has never been tried or charged. The Israelis kidnapped Mordechai Vanunu from Rome, tried him in secret, kept him in isolation for a decade and continues to imprison him, for simply telling The Sunday Times in London about Israel’s nuclear weapons.

The question that continues to puzzle us is why, in the eyes of our government, and those in Washington,amongst others. must Israel remain above international law and has this unique immunity from criticism, unlike the other nations of the world?

Yours Sincerely

Ismail Zayid,MD.

President, Canada Palestine Association.