Montreal Pulls Images of Intifada

http://www.ala.org/ala/alonline/currentnews/newsarchive/2005abc/june2005a/cotesaintluc.cfm

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Posted June 10, 2005.

Montreal Pulls Images of Intifada

The son of slain Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi has withdrawn an exhibit of his mother’s work from a suburban branch of the Montreal City Library in protest of officials removing five photos that offended a patron. Stephan Hachemi insisted that the Eleanor London branch in Côte-Saint-Luc shut down the exhibit when officials would not reinstate the controversial images of the Palestinian Intifada uprising and life in Palestinian refugee camps. “To me, this is truly a violation of the spirit of my mother’s work,” Hachemi told the Canadian Press June 8, characterizing the removal as “scandalous, a discriminatory act, racist, an attack on freedom of the press.”

“We support Stephan Hachemi’s fight for justice,” Côte-Saint-Luc Mayor Robert Libman said, explaining that the town council had commissioned the Kazemi exhibit as a means of drawing attention to the circumstances of her July 2003 death in Tehran, Iran, while in police custody for taking pictures of a student demonstration outside the Evin Prison.

However, within 30 minutes of the exhibit’s opening in early June, town officials received a complaint, followed by many more the next day. Characterizing the five photos as “too politically charged” for Côte-Saint-Luc’s large Jewish population, Libman said, “The exhibit drew parallels between the regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq and Israel.” He also stated that the library won’t host any further politically charged displays.

The Kazemi exhibit of 23 photos has been shown in other international venues, including Paris.

Posted June 10, 2005.