9251 Yonge St. #219
Richmond Hill, ON
L4C 9T3 Canada
http://www.cdhriran.blogspot.com/
Centre for Thought, Dialogue and Human Rights in Iran – Toronto
CTDHR
Oct 2006
To the care of Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Re: Serious concern for the safety of our client and our directors
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am writing to you in order to express my deep concerns regarding the safety of our client Mr. Mohammad Mohammadi as well as two directors of our organization including myself.
As Human Right advocacy group it is our foremost duty to question and challenge any system/individual that violates the fundamentals of the charter that we all believe in. In the past few month we were working on behalf of a Canadian Citizen, Mr. Mustafa Mohammadi, and his family to facilitate the freedom of his young daughter from a military camp in Iraq that is under the control of this Iranian political organization known as “Mojahedin e Khalgh” or MEK.
Since the story of this family was picked up by national media and based on the interest expressed by National Post we collaborated with the NP reporter Mr. Stewart Bell, in various capacity from translator to mediator and the result was a five (5) part series that was published from September 23rd to September 28th on the front page of that paper with the mention to our Centre and repeated quotas from us. Needless to say, this report was not written in the favor of this organization.
Since this organization is active in Canada, as known by your office, the local members have informed their other pockets in North America and Europe hence an extensive campaign started against us. The regular attacks on their various media from TV/Radio programs to the papers and Websites accuses us as being the agents of Iranian Regime, a very old and overplayed rhetoric, and asks their members to “deal” with us.
Since the young Mohammad, he is the brother of the girl in camp Ashraf, was kept in that camp against his will for 4 years in the past he was the key witness in preparation of that article. In the recent days and after the continuation of the threats he is very scared about his own safety which makes us uncomfortable too. Since the clear instruction of this organization, as per their leader and stated in many of their publications, is to eliminate any individual who turns against the organization, defector, his concern for his safety is understandable. At the same time I and another director of our Centre Mr. Saeed Soltanpour, a well known journalist in our community, have been included in many of those threats and accusations.
Knowing the volume of the issues you are dealing with we are not requesting any particular protection at this time but merely to inform you about the situation.
Sincerely Yours
Niaz Salimi
Director, North American Divisions
CTDHR, October 31, 2006
