THE OFFICIAL WIRE

The Iranian Dissidents living in Camp Ashraf in Iraq are to be relocated to a new camp near the Baghdad airport. The matter has been a shock and badly troubling for the 3300 persons living in the camp, for the simple reason that they are being forced to leave the place they have lived in for more than 20 years. Furthermore, the information received about the new camp, where the Iranian civilians are to be relocated to, seems to be changing and becoming more disturbing everyday.

The residents were first told that the new location, Camp Liberty, which used to be a base for American soldiers, had the advantage of being large enough to locate the 3400 dissidents. This was despite the fact that the base was a desert-like place hardly suitable for men and women civilians. This information however, was soon proved to be wrong and the Iraqi government decided to force the men and women in the camp to much smaller place. The first information was that the camp was of an area of 40 sq km. However, they were later told that only 0.6 sq km of the new camp will be available to them and four meter walls will be put around the camp. No-one would be allowed to leave or enter the camp either. This no doubt reminds everyone of the concentration camps used by the Nazi regime for its opponents.

Looking at the history of the term concentration camp, one cannot help noticing the resemblances which exist.  At the time, Hitler ordered to have his opponents physically concentrated in one place, and that is where the word concentration camp came from. One can also read in the history books that the term concentration camp referred to a camp in which people were detained or confined, usually under harsh conditions and without regard to legal norms of arrest and imprisonment that are acceptable in a constitutional democracy.

Sadly, these are the very conditions that the Iranian dissidents have been subjected to and the conditions have continuously become worse during the past year. The residents in Camp Ashraf are in fact intellectuals who have decided to stand up against the fundamentalist regime in Iran and demand democracy and freedom. But the fact is that they are receiving a harsh treatment from the international institutions, which are supposed to defend their rights. 

We know today that the 3300 exiles would only be permitted to occupy a tiny corner of Camp Liberty, barely quarter of a mile square, which had been completely looted, was without running water and around which the Iraqis were erecting a 15ft concrete wall. Far from being offered a safe haven, it seemed, they were to await their fate crammed into what the European Council last week denounced as “a prison”, watched inside and out by armed Iraqi and Iranian guards.
  Worst of all is that the UN representative, who is following the events on behalf of the United Nations Secretary General, is not helping the matter either.  The happenings are indeed outrageous and cannot be accepted in the 21^st century. As many humanitarian figures, including the archbishop of Wales have re-iterated: “This is totally unacceptable. How could 3,400 people, including 1,000 women, be located in such a small area?”

The new camp is about 40 times smaller that the area that the dissidents have lived in up until now, and the issue has thus become one that can easily lead to another act of genocide.

Kambiz Assai is a former political prisoner and a human rights activist in the UK.

http://news.officialwire.com/main.php?action=posted_news&rid=313650

THE HUFFINGTON POST

Life as a mullah in Iran must be pretty disconcerting. All those in power in Tehran today are no doubt deeply worried about their economic wellbeing and the future of their rule. Sanctions have come in waves and are sapping away at the foundations of the national economy. The US and the European Union are intent on disabling the Iranian central bank, the oil industry, and even the regime’s ability to trade gold and diamonds.

If economic problems were not enough, the mullahs’ main regional ally, Syria, is descending into civil war. From Tehran, it must seem like only a matter of time before Damascus falls – much like Tripoli did – leaving the mullahs with no nearby ally other than war-torn Iraq.

Those in power are probably constantly looking over their collective shoulder. As with other countries of North Africa and the Middle East, Iranians are a youthful, restive people who have shown a willingness to rise up against totalitarianism in the past.

Conditions are, in short, ripe for regime change. All that is required is for an organised opposition to rise up and take the reins of power. For the mullahs, this last point is key: the Iranian opposition, the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI/MEK), must be annihilated at all costs if they are to survive.

Within this context it is easy to see why the 3,400 men and woman living in Camp Ashraf, Iraq, are at the top of the list of Tehran’s targets. These people are PMOI/MEK sympathisers and have represented a thorn in the side of the Iranian regime for decades.

Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, Iran’s stooge in Baghdad, threatened to dismantle the camp by the end of 2011 and scatter the residents. Given that Iraqi troops had already raided the camp on more than one occasion, killing dozens, there were real fears that the camp’s end would also be the end of the residents themselves. The deadline was only extended when PMOI/MEK leader Maryam Rajavi agreed that the residents be re-housed in Camp Liberty, a former US military base in the Iraqi capital.

Mrs Rajavi’s agreement was given reluctantly and only after receiving assurances from the U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton and that the United Nations would monitor conditions in Camp Liberty, where many residents faced a long stay. Sadly, this trust has been betrayed within weeks. Not only is the Iraqi government reneging on its promises to respect the lives and decency of the Ashraf community, the UN is keeping silent about the transformation of Camp Liberty into a concentration camp, a place more fit for cattle than human beings.

“Do you think the UN’s action with regard to Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty is unusual?”, asked Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York, during his speech to an international conference earlier this month. “They’re ignoring the fact that these people are going to live in one square kilometre. They’re ignoring the fact that there’s no drinking water in Camp Liberty”. There is not a “single road with asphalt in the camp” or a “single piece of green area”, Mr Giuliani told the conference, which was organised by the French Committee for Democracy and Human Rights in Iran. This was not a camp, he said, but a prison.

“The Iraqi government has refused to allow any of the residents to visit because they don’t want them to see how terrible the conditions of their imprisonment are going to be”, he continued. “The UN has not objected to any of this. It is simply disgraceful for the UN to allow this to go forward. It’s disgraceful for the UN to submit to the demands of a regime like Maliki’s and ultimately to close its eyes to the fact that really what they’re doing is submitting to the demands of the Iranian mullahs”. Al-Maliki was, the event heard, “just a puppet on a string doing the bidding of the Iranian mullahs.”

To add salt to the wounds, the UN ambassador to Iraq, Martin Kobler, has failed to deny the most outrageous Iranian claims. According to the Iranian ambassador to Baghdad, hundreds of the Camp Ashraf residents are willing to be transferred to Tehran – where, as PMOI supporters they would face prison, torture and possibly execution. The United Nations considers the PMOI/MEK to be a terrorist organisation, according to the latest Iranian diplomatic salvo. Why doesn’t Mr Kobler deny these falsehoods? Whose side is the UN on?

Ashraf residents must believe that theirs is a story of betrayal. It was the US, after all, that, after liberating Iraq, promised to protect them if they agreed to disarm. The US is out of Iraq, but the residents are far from safe. A second betrayal is now in the making. For a body such as the United Nations, silence in the face of oppression is nothing short of scandalous.

Lord Carlile of Berriew, CBE, FRSA, QC

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/lord-carlile/iran-regime-change-conditions-are-ripe_b_1237828.html

SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

The week before Christmas, I reported on what appeared to be a fast-looming tragedy. In Iraq, 3,300 unarmed Iranian exiles, who had lived since the 1980s at Camp Ashraf, a neat town they built in the desert near the Iranian border, were being threatened with massacre on December 31.

The threat was issued by Iraq’s prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, acting in conjunction with Iran’s murderous Revolutionary Guards, who regard the People’s Mujahideen of Iran (the PMOI), part of the National Council for Resistance in Iran, as their most hated enemies. As the deadline neared, following intense diplomatic activity, not least by the US government (which gave a written guarantee of protection to each of the Ashraf residents in 2003, in return for the surrender of their arms), the UN signed an agreement with the Iraqi government, brokered by the UN’s special representative in Iraq, Martin Kolber, a former German diplomat.

The Ashraf residents would be transferred to Camp Liberty, a former US base covering 25 square miles near Baghdad, from where the UN would arrange their transfer to third countries. On Christmas Day, this was welcomed by the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.

It then emerged, however, that the 3,300 exiles would only be permitted to occupy a tiny corner of Camp Liberty, barely quarter of a mile square, which had been completely looted, was without running water and around which the Iraqis were erecting a 15ft concrete wall. They would not be allowed to bring vehicles or personal belongings, or leave the camp. Far from being offered a safe haven, it seemed, they were to await their fate crammed into what the European Council last week denounced as “a prison”, watched inside and out by armed Iraqi and Iranian guards.

As scandalous as anything in the past month has been the part played by the UN’s Mr Kolber who, far from protesting at this betrayal, met in Baghdad with the Iranian ambassador, himself a senior Revolutionary Guards commander. After the meeting he announced first that 750, then 1,250, of the exiles were willing to return to Iran. There is nothing they could dread more, since they know that they would either be imprisoned or killed. But Kobler’s claim has been trumpeted by Tehran as a victory, and the deadly impasse remains.

General David Phillips, the former head of the US Military Police, who gave the Ashraf residents those personal guarantees of their safety, has expressed his anguish at these developments. He has now been joined in protesting at the betrayal by an array of distinguished international figures, including Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York.

But on what authority could a UN official become party to this inhuman deal? And why does our Government appear to condone what is going on? The Foreign Office recently confirmed to me that they still regard the PMOI as terrorists, despite being told in 2008 that they must remove it from their list of proscribed terrorist organisations, when Lord Chief Justice Philips ruled that they had been unable to produce a shred of evidence to justify this. What dark game are they all playing – in our name?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9045657/How-I-woke-up-to-the-untruths-of-Barack-Obama.html

Remarks attributed to the UN’s top diplomat in Iraq have handed Tehran a propaganda coup by suggesting Camp Ashraf dissidents want to return to Iran, writes a member of the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom

In 1942, in the middle of World War Two, a well-intentioned senior European diplomat went to meet a top Gestapo general to discuss the fate of thousands of Jews who had fled Nazi occupation to seek refuge in a neighbouring country. After the meeting, the general announced that the diplomat had told him that a large number of the Jews had become weary of being away from their motherland and were looking forward to going back to the “warmth” of their country – even under Nazi rule.

The story sounded farfetched, but the gloating Gestapo man insisted that the conversation took place. The European diplomat, for unexplained reasons, was not inclined to deny it, though it was evident that he had provided propaganda fodder to the Nazis. In reality, the tale was farfetched. Such a meeting never took place, to the best of our knowledge.

Now fast forward 70 years. Something very analogous to this story is taking place – and this time it is bitter reality, not a tale. It involves the fate of 3,400 Iranian dissidents in Camp Ashraf, Iraq, members of the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran, the principal Iranian opposition movement. These Iranians fled the ruthless rule of the clerical regime and took refuge in Camp Ashraf, across the border. Following the American led occupation of Iraq, Ashraf residents disarmed to the United States voluntarily. In return, every resident signed an agreement with the Americans guaranteeing his or her protection until final disposition.

Troubles for Ashraf residents began when the US turned over the security of the camp to Iraqis in 2009. Iraqi forces, acting at the behest of the Iranian regime, have killed 47 of the defenceless residents and wounded more than 1,000 in two massacres. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s arbitrary deadline to close Ashraf by the end of 2011 set the stage for a humanitarian catastrophe, but it was revoked in the final days of December due to international pressure.

Subsequently – with guarantees for the safety and wellbeing of the residents by the US Secretary of State and the United Nations – Maryam Rajavi, the charismatic leader of Iranian dissidents, prevented another massacre and persuaded the residents to move to Camp Liberty, a former US military base near Baghdad, under constant United Nations monitoring. The government of Iraq also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the UN to that effect.

But Maliki, under orders from Tehran, has been reneging on the agreement. Camp Liberty has been looted; it has no running water, no electricity, no infrastructure, and Iraq has reduced the allocated size from 40 square kilometres to one square kilometre. It also is erecting walls that would turn Camp Liberty into a virtual concentration camp. All the while, the UN and the Special Representative of the Secretary General to Iraq, Ambassador Martin Kobler, have not objected.

Now comes the perplexing part. On January 22, the mullahs’ regime, in its media, quoted its ambassador to Iraq Hassan DanaiiFar, a senior commander of the notorious Revolutionary Guards – our modern Gestapo – as saying that he met with Kobler and was told that : “In meetings that the UN representative has had with members of this grouplet in Camp Ashraf, the majority of members…declared readiness to return to Iran but the terrorist commanders of this grouplet have not let them out of the camp and somehow have taken the members hostage.”

The mullahs’ ambassador said that the UN ambassador told him that at least 750 Ashraf residents are willing to go back to the mullahs’ rule. Many questions come to mind immediately. If the mission of the UN is solely humanitarian and to save the Ashraf residents, does the UN envision a humanitarian role for Iran in dealing with its arch enemies? It is the old fox and the henhouse story. According to the residents, the UN ambassador has only met Ashraf residents for 15 minutes. How was he able to make such an assessment that 750 of the residents want to go to their executioners?

The Iranian state press has had a field day with the remarks attributed to the UN’s top diplomat in Iraq. Actually, since the UN ambassador has not denied these remarks attributed to him, Tehran is inflating the original figures and the Fars news agency, on January 24, quoted the mullahs’ ambassador as claiming that he had been told that 1,260 of the residents are eager to go back to the mullahs. Further silence by the UN ambassador only allows Tehran to further exaggerate the figure.

Every day that goes by without a denial by Kobler increases the shadow of doubt. The ambassador should know that this would make his mandate murky. The UN Charter stipulates that one of its aims is to achieve international cooperation in “promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms.” Assuming that this could be done by playing into the hands of an oppressor regime like the mullahs’ is not moral, ethical, or defensible. It is foolhardy and would cost lives of innocent people.

Lord King of West Bromwich is a member of the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom

http://www.publicserviceeurope.com/article/1416/un-hands-iran-propaganda-coup-over-ashraf-dissidents

PRNewswire

WASHINGTON, Jan. 26, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ —  Friday, January 27, 2012, marks the 300th day of a sit-in across from the US Department of State by the families and supporters of Camp Ashraf residents.

The participants will be asking Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to revoke the unwarranted designation of the MEK based on the facts and law and as a necessary condition for safety and security of the residents of Camp Ashraf

3,400 members of Iran’s principal opposition the Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK) and their families reside in Camp Ashraf. They have been formally recognized as “asylum seekers” by the United Nations since September 2011.

Following the April 2011 massacre at Camp Ashraf by Iraqi forces, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA), the Ranking Member of the House Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade revealed that, “In private discussions, the Iraqi ambassador’s office has said the blood is not on the hands of the Iraqi government but is at least partially on the hands of the State department because the MEK is listed as a terrorist group and, accordingly, Iraq doesn’t feel that it has to respect the human rights of those in the camp.”

The H. RES 60, which has some 100 bi-partisan cosponsors, reiterates that “the FTO designation of the MEK has been used by Iranian surrogates in Iraq as well as the Nuri al-Maliki Government in Iraq to attack the MEK members in Camp Ashraf or impose inhumane restrictions on them, which has led to loss of life.”

Meanwhile, officials in the office of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees have told members of Congress that MEK’s FTO designation has blocked the UN agency’s efforts to find a safe haven outside of Iraq for Ashraf residents.

As Iraqi government continues to breach its agreement with the United Nations for a peaceful resolution to the humanitarian crisis in Camp Ashraf, time is running out to re-settle the residents in third countries.

The prompt and expeditious removal of MEK’s FTO designation will enhance US efforts to better fulfill its moral and legal responsibilities for ensuring safety of Ashraf residents. It will also remove a major obstacle to the resettlement of the residents in other countries. 

SOURCE: US Committee for Camp Ashraf Residents

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/day-300-of-state-department-sit-in-iranian-americans-call-on-secretary-clinton-to-delist-the-mek-protect-camp-ashraf-residents-138164424.html

Council of Europe

Strasbourg, 25.01.2012 – In a statement adopted today at its meeting in Strasbourg, the Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) called on the Iraqi authorities not to turn Camp Liberty into a prison, and called on the UNHCR to begin its work in Ashraf and end the delay in affirming the refugee status of the residents there.

While the international community is planning to find a peaceful solution for Ashraf and the residents are helping to make it come true through the relinquishment of their certain rights, the Iranian regime is planning for the failure of this solution through the Iraqi government.

The initial area allocated to the residents in Camp Liberty has reduced by 80 times and the living conditions in the camp are far less than initially proposed. The limited area is becoming enclosed by concrete walls; it is insisted that Iraqi police should be present inside the camp; freedom of movement is not allowed; there are increasing restrictions for the residents such as not being allowed to transfer their vehicles to Camp Liberty and to send a team of Ashraf technicians in order to assess the conditions of the camp. This will be a forcible relocation to a prison.

The Committee urges the Iraqi government to abandon the obstructions and to implement the international laws and standards with all details in the relocation of the residents to Camp Liberty, and urges the UNHCR to defend the resident’s rights within the laws and to immediately start its work in Ashraf, and not wait until Liberty Camp is ready, in order to expedite the resident’s resettlement in third countries.

We encourage Council of Europe member and observer states to consider positively the resettlement demands of Ashraf residents.

http://assembly.coe.int/ASP/NewsManager/EMB_NewsManagerView.asp?ID=7359&L=2

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Iranian dissidents at a camp north of Baghdad allege that the Iraqi government is preparing a “concentration camp” to which they are to be relocated under a United Nations-brokered plan. 

Camp Liberty, a former U.S. military base near the Baghdad International Airport, has been picked as a temporary home for more than 3,000 Camp Ashraf residents – former Iranian resistance fighters sheltered in Iraq since 1986.

But the camp has been reduced to a fraction of its original size and is surrounded by tall concrete walls and is monitored by surveillance cameras and police – all violations of the U.N. deal with the Iraqi government, said Shahriar Kia, a Camp Ashraf spokesman.

“This is clearly not only a concentration camp, but a prison,” he said in a telephone interview.

Radhia Achouri, a spokeswoman for the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq, told The Washington Times that Camp Liberty fails to meet U.N. standards.

“The government of Iraq is yet to complete the preparation of Camp Liberty in accordance with the international humanitarian criteria specified in the [U.N. agreement],” she said in an emailed response to questions from The Times.

Ms. Achouri said Camp Ashraf residents will move to Camp Liberty only after “the U.N. is satisfied, upon verification of the camp, that these humanitarian criteria are met.”

The Iraqi government had set a Dec. 31 deadline to close Camp Ashraf. Last month, it agreed to extend the deadline to the end of April, by which time it wants all Camp Ashraf residents to leave Iraq.

In December, Martin Kobler, the U.N. secretary-general’s special representative for Iraq, struck the deal with the Iraqi government to move Camp Ashraf residents to Camp Liberty. The leadership of the resistance movement, known as the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), agreed to relocate 400 residents as a goodwill gesture.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki accuses the MEK of being a terrorist group and wants to close the camp. The U.S. State Department designated the MEK as a terrorist organization in 1997, but American forces disarmed the resistance in 2003 after invading Iraq to topple dictator Saddam Hussein.

In the past couple of weeks, the Iranian exiles have reported rocket attacks on Camp Ashraf. The Iraqi government also has announced arrest warrants for 126 residents.

Mr. al-Maliki’s critics, including Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq, accuse the prime minister of acting at the behest of the Shiite regime in Iran, which has pursued the resistance for decades.

“It was purely an Iranian decision to transfer [the Iranian exiles] from Camp Ashraf,” Mr. Mutlaq said in a phone interview.

“There is no reason to transport them to another location inside Iraq when we are looking to move them to other countries. It doesn’t make sense. We feel ashamed that they are suffering in our country,” he added.

Iraqi government spokesmen did not answer their phones or respond to emailed requests for comment from The Washington Times.

According to the U.N. agreement, the U.N. refugee agency will determine the refugee status of the dissidents after they are relocated to Camp Liberty in a necessary first step for their resettlement outside Iraq.

The deal potentially avoided what the exiles and their supporters feared would be a massacre by Iraqi army and police if they tried to close the camp by force.

Mr. Kia said Camp Ashraf residents have not been permitted to visit Camp Liberty but have received information on conditions at the site from sources inside Iran.

While the Iraqi government is solely responsible for the safety and security of the Iranian dissidents, it has agreed to allow the United Nations to station monitors at Camp Liberty.

U.N. officials have been visiting Camp Liberty regularly. They were accompanied by U.S. Embassy officials on a recent visit.

The Obama administration supports the U.N.-led effort.

“We are closely engaged with the U.N. and the Iraqi government, which are working to ensure that conditions at former Camp Liberty are consistent with international humanitarian standards,” said Noel Clay, a State Department spokesman.

He said the United States wants “a safe, secure, humane resolution of the impasse at Camp Ashraf.”

“Our interest is humanitarian and independent of our views of the MEK’s record,” he added.

The MEK, also known as People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, was responsible for terrorist attacks in Iran in the 1970s that killed several U.S. military personnel and civilians, according to the State Department. The group also received military and financial support from Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Camp Ashraf’s residents surrendered their weapons in 2003 as part of a cease-fire agreement with U.S. forces. The State Department is reviewing its designation of MEK as a terrorist organization. The European Union removed the group from its terrorist blacklist in 2009.

Mr. Kia, the Camp Ashraf spokesman, said residents haven’t changed their mind about moving to Camp Liberty, but they first want written assurances from the United Nations that all humanitarian conditions have been met at the new site.

Ms. Achouri, the U.N. spokeswoman in Baghdad, said the United Nations has urged the Iraqi government to accommodate requests from the residents of Camp Ashraf for more space at Camp Liberty and other requests, such as allowing the exiles to bring their vehicles to what will be their new home.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jan/23/iran-dissidents-iraq-force-into-concentration-camp/