OTTAWA – Prime Minister Stephen Harper is condemning Iranian authorities for using "brute force and intimidation" to stifle widespread protests against that country's recent election results.

"The reaction of the Iranian authorities to the demonstrations in Iran is wholly unacceptable," Harper said in a statement today.

"The regime has chosen to use brute force and intimidation in responding to peaceful opposition regarding legitimate and serious allegations of electoral fraud," he said.

The strong statement comes with word that a Canadian journalist has been detained in Iran. Canadian consular officials are seeking access to Maziar Bahari, an Iranian-Canadian detained Sunday while working for Newsweek magazine.

Harper said the human rights such as freedom of assembly and freedom of expression, were being ignored, citing the arrest of protesters and the crackdown on journalists.

"Canada calls on the Iranian authorities to immediately cease the use of violence against their own people, to release all political prisoners and journalists — including Canadians — who have been unjustly detained, to allow Iranian and foreign media to report freely on these historic events, and to conduct a full and transparent investigation into allegations of fraud in the presidential election," Harper said.

Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon summoned Iran's top diplomat in Canada to protest Bahari's arrest.

The charge is the highest-ranking Iranian diplomat in Ottawa. Neither country has had an ambassador in the other's capital for a about a year in a diplomatic skirmish over acceptable candidates. The charge runs the embassy in the absence of an ambassador.

Consular officials have sent a diplomatic note to Iranian authorities in Tehran to demand immediate consular access to Bahari.

Online profiles of Bahari say he was born in Iran in 1967 and studied in Montreal, where he earned a degree in communications from Concordia University.

Newsweek says he is a Canadian citizen who has been living in and covering Iran for the last decade.

The magazine has called for his immediate release and is asking western governments to use their influence on his behalf.

Bahari is one of at least two dozen journalists and bloggers arrested in Iran since protests began there a week ago over the recent presidential election.

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-With files from The Canadian Press