PRNewswire

WASHINGTON, Oct. 18, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The US Committee for Camp Ashraf Residents (USCCAR) deplores Iraqi government’s nefarious actions which pave the way for another massacre at Camp Ashraf through sabotaging the efforts of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which seeks to ensure the safe and secure resettlement of the residents of Camp Ashraf in third countries.

Families and friends of Cam Ashraf residents in Washington, DC, call for immediate intervention of the United Sates following the April 8, 2011 massacre at the camp by the Iraqi forces.

USCCAR calls on President Obama to intervene immediately and compel the Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to end the barbaric siege of Camp Ashraf and cooperate with the UNHCR.

Similarly, USCCAR calls on the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to declare null and void the December 2011 deadline set by Maliki to close down Camp Ashraf. The arbitrary deadline serves as a prelude to another deadly assault on Camp Ashraf.

Maliki’s goal is to carry out an all-out crackdown at the camp before the year’s end by creating a deadlock through impeding UNHCR’s efforts and ensuring that the residents have no other place to go.  The planned assault entails the occupation of another part of Ashraf.

Last month, UNHCR announced it had officially recognized the residents as “asylum seekers” and that it intended to interview each applicant as the first step to determine their refugee status. It called on the Iraqi government to extend the December 2011 deadline so that the interview process could be completed in accordance with UNHCR standards.

Alarming information, however, indicates that the Maliki’s government, in collusion with the Iranian regime, is working to obstruct the UNHCR’s humanitarian efforts. Instructed by Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s notorious Quds Force commander, and Hassan Danaifar, Tehran’s ambassador to Iraq, Maliki has refused to grant the extension demanded by UNHCR. It has also brazenly and publicly rebuffed all attempts by the European Union’s Special Envoy on Ashraf, Jean de Ruyt, to travel to Iraq and visit Camp Ashraf.

With the arbitrary deadline looming, President Obama and Secretary Ban Ki-moon must publicly call on Maliki to extend the December 31 deadline in order to allow UNHCR to complete its task.

Camp Ashraf is home to 3,400 unarmed members of the main Iranian opposition movement, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK) and their families who were recognized by the United States as “Protected Persons” under the Fourth Geneva Convention in 2004.

 SOURCE US Committee for Camp Ashraf Residents (USCCAR)

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/usccar-demands-us-and-un-intervention-as-iraq-sabotages-efforts-to-resolve-camp-ashraf-humanitarian-crisis-132068668.html

REUTERS

BRUSSELS – The European Union has named a senior Belgian diplomat to work with the United Nations, Iraq and others to help resolve the plight of more than 3,000 opponents of the Iranian government living at a camp in Iraq.

Jean De Ruyt, a former Belgian ambassador to the EU, will act as an adviser to EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on Camp Ashraf, a spokesman for Ashton said on Monday.

The camp, some 65 km (40 miles) from Baghdad, is the base of the People’s Mujahideen Organisation of Iran (PMOI), which mounted attacks on Iran before the U.S.-led removal of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in 2003.

The future of its more than 3,000 residents became uncertain after the United States, which considers the PMOI a terrorist organisation, turned the camp over to the Iraqi government.

Baghdad plans to close it before the end of this year and Ashraf has been the scene of bloody clashes between residents and the Iraqi security forces.

The rights group Amnesty International says the residents are subject to harassment by the Iraqi government and denied access to basic medicine. More than 30 residents were killed in a clash with Iraqi security forces in April.

De Ruyt will liaise with EU states and organisations including the United Nations, Ashton’s spokesman said.

He said the European Union, which removed the PMOI from its terrorism list in 2009, wanted a high-level diplomatic approach.

“We need a peaceful and realistic solution and the security and safety of residents is the priority,” he said.

Washington has proposed moving Ashraf residents temporarily to a new location in Iraq but they have rejected this, saying it would lead to a massacre.

Struan Stevenson, head of the European Parliament delegation on Iraq, called De Ruyt’s appointment an “apparent breakthrough.”

“The unarmed, civilian residents of Camp Ashraf have suffered years of psychological torture and harassment at the hands of the Iraqi government, aided and abetted by their sponsors in Tehran,” he said in a statement.

“The appointment of Ambassador De Ruyt … has underlined the seriousness of this issue. I look forward to working with him to ensure that we can avoid a Srebrenica-style catastrophe occurring at Ashraf,” he said, referring to the 1996 massacre of Muslims by Bosnian Serb forces in the former Yugoslavia.

Stevenson said the United Nations was assessing the 3,400 residents for refugee status and the intention was to resettle them in EU states and third countries, but this process could not be completed by year-end. He called the Iraqi deadline to close the camp “ludicrous.”

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/09/26/uk-iraq-ashraf-eu-idUKTRE78P24820110926

AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton has appointed an advisor to mull over the fate of thousands of outlawed Iranians facing expulsion from a camp in Iraq, their home for 30 years.

Catherine Ashton, EU foreign policy chief

A spokesman for Ashton said Monday that Jean De Ruyt, Belgium’s former ambassador to the EU, will act in Brussels “as an advisor on the European Union’s response” to Camp Ashraf, located near the border with Iran and home to some 3,400 Iranian dissidents.

The camp, which has become a mounting international problem, has been in the spotlight since an April raid by Iraqi security left 34 dead and scores injured, triggering sharp condemnation. Iraq wants its closure by year’s end.

It was set up when Iraq and Iran were at war in the 1980s by the then Iranian People’s Mujahedeen and later came under US control until January 2009, when US forces transferred security for the camp to Iraq.

Maryam Rajavi, head of the dissidents, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, on Monday called for the new nominee to visit Ashraf and to demand Iraq drop its bid to close the camp by the end of 2011.

And in a statement, the head of a European parliament group on Iraq, MEP Struan Stevenson, said “Ambassador De Ruyt should visit Ashraf as soon as possible.”

Stevenson said the camp’s residents were being assessed individually by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees after applying for refugee status, which would allow them to resettle elsewhere.

“This major operation cannot be completed within the timescale set by Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki,” he added, referring to the December 31 deadline for closure.