METRO VANCOUVER – The worried father of a journalist from North Vancouver is "baffled" that Iranian officials say they don’t know where Dorothy Parvaz is located.
The Iranian foreign ministry says it is "pursuing" the whereabouts of Parvaz, a journalist working for Al-Jazeera television, after Syrian officials said she had been deported to Iran.
"We are pursuing the issue. Acquiring information about her situation is important for us," ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said Tuesday when asked if Dorothy Parvez was in Iran.
Speaking from his home in North Vancouver Tuesday morning, Fred Parvaz said he was convinced Iranian officials were holding his daughter and pleaded with them to allow her to make a phone call.
"Iranian officials are saying they don’t know where she is but we know she is there. The Syrians even gave the flight number she was on," he said.
"Maybe some officials don’t know because they haven’t been well informed. I am baffled."
He said the family is worried sick because they haven’t heard from Parvaz in nearly 20 days and he is hoping the Canadian government will do more to help find her.
"Canadian officials say they are doing what they can. But I haven’t seen anything come out of it yet," he said.
"I am very concerned, very stressed out. I am basically pleading with the Iranians to let her make a phone call. It’s not fair. It’s just one phone call. Give her something to read [on the phone] as a minimum."
Meanwhile, Canadian officials say they are doing everything they can to try and find out information about Parvaz.
"We are very concerned about this individual and are pressing for information about her whereabouts," Lisa Monette, a spokeswoman for Canada’s Department of Foreign and International Affairs, said in an e-mail to The Vancouver Sun on Tuesday.
She said Canadian officials are engaging Iranian and Syrian authorities "at high levels to obtain information" but did not say whether the government had any leads on her location.
Parvez, who holds U.S., Canadian and Iranian passports, has been missing since she arrived in Damascus on assignment for Al-Jazeera on April 29.
There was no word from the Syrian authorities on her whereabouts until last Wednesday when the embassy in Washington said that she had been deported to Tehran after attempting to enter the country on an expired Iranian passport.
Mehmanparast echoed that account.
"She entered Syria on an invalid Iranian passport, did not have any work permit and was carrying other passports, American and Canadian," he said, stressing that Iran does not recognize multiple nationality.
His comments came three days after Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said he had "no information" on the journalist’s whereabouts.
The Syrian embassy said Parvez was put on a flight to Tehran on May 1, escorted by the Iranian consul in Damascus, within "less than 48 hours of her arrival." It said Parvez was turned over to Iran because she was carrying an expired Iranian passport when she arrived in Damascus, citing "tourism" as her reason for travel.
"It is very regretful that a journalist working for a world-renowned news agency such as Al-Jazeera International would attempt to enter a country on two illegal accounts – an expired passport, and by providing false information on official documents regarding her travel reason," the embassy said.
Parvaz, 39, began working with Al-Jazeera in 2010. She was born in Iran but moved to Canada when she was 12.
Al-Jazeera appealed to Iran last week for the immediate release of Parvez. Both U.S. and Canadian authorities have expressed concern about her case.
With Postmedia News and AFP
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