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Camp Ashraf exiles file US complaint against Iran, Iraq

December 15, 2011 by

AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

Iranian-Americans shout slogans against Iraqi Prime Minister, Nuri-al-Maliki on December 13, near the US Chamber of Commerce in Washington, DC. Four Iranian exiles have filed a complaint in US court against senior Iranian and Iraqi officials for their alleged role in an April attack on Camp Ashraf, a site for Iranian dissidents in Iraq. (AFP Photo/Karen Bleier)

WASHINGTON — Four Iranian exiles have filed a complaint in US court against senior Iranian and Iraqi officials for their alleged role in an April attack on Camp Ashraf, a site for Iranian dissidents in Iraq.

The Iranians, three of whom received political asylum in the United States and another resided in the United States, claim they suffered “heavy injuries” during an April 8 attack on Camp Ashraf, according to the complaint filed Tuesday in US District Court in Washington.

The site north of Baghdad houses some 3,400 Iranian refugees hostile to the regime in Tehran. It is controlled by the People’s Mujahedeen, which Washington blacklists as a terrorist group.

In their civil lawsuit, the plaintiffs claim they were victims of “assault and battery, false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress” in the attack by Iraqi forces. They also claim Iranian forces participated.

The lawsuit accuses Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leadership of the Quds force — the shadowy special operations unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards that operates abroad — as well as senior Iraqi military officials of having “conspired” with and exercised “command and control over the perpetrators of torture and attacks against the unarmed civilians of Camp Ashraf.”

The plaintiffs demand damages for “torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and crimes against humanity as violations of international and domestic law.”

The controversial April raid by Iraqi security forces left at least 36 people dead and scores injured. Residents said the Iraqi forces attacked them.

Saddam Hussein allowed the rebel People’s Mujahedeen to set up the camp in the 1980s when his forces were at war with Iran, and the camp came under US military protection when US-led forces toppled Saddam in 2003.

US forces, however, handed over security responsibility to Baghdad authorities in January 2009.

The Iraqi government says the camp is a threat to its relations with neighboring Iran and is demanding that it close by December 31.

But the United Nations appealed last week for an extension to the deadline to allow more time in negotiations with the camp’s residents, who are refusing to move unless they are given UN protection.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hLdT1s7qPGwsfbc_y1EETiBuGu9g

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USCCAR Strongly Condemns Washington Post’s Editorial for Giving Iraq’s Maliki License to Murder Camp Ashraf Residents

December 15, 2011 by

PRNewswire

Iranian-Americans participate in a rally outside the White House to support the protection of Camp Ashraf in Iraq, which houses 3,400 members of the Iranian opposition party, MEK. The event was planned to coincide with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's visit with President Barack Obama on December 12, 2011. (Erin Sutherland/MCT via Getty Images)

WASHINGTON, Dec. 15, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The US Committee for Camp Ashraf Residents (USCCAR) deplores Washington Post’s editorial (“A U.S. plan to save Iranians who remain in Iraq”, Dec. 14), endorsing a US plan for relocation of 3,400 residents of Camp Ashraf to an Iraqi-run de facto detention center near Baghdad’s International airport, formerly known as Camp Liberty.

The insidious piece, replete with double-entendre and mixing of absolutely no facts and lots of fiction, is effectively a farewell gift to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, on his way back to Baghdad, to set in motion the plan for the massacre of Camp Ashraf residents. The Post is suggesting to have the lives of these Iranians under the control of Maliki, a man, who David Ignatius of the Post has described as “the conspirator turned chief executive” and a “backroom plotter,” whose “own Dawa Party bombed the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait in 1983.”

The editorial’s case about relocation of the residents to such a detention center as the best plan to end this humanitarian crisis peacefully is at best wishful thinking. It is an extremely dangerous suggestion that could prepare the ground for yet another Srebrenica-style massacre. Without any practical and actionable guarantees by the international community, nothing would deter the Iraqi forces of al-Maliki from repeating the massacres they perpetrated in July 2009 and April 2011, killing 47 residents – including eight women – and wounding 1070. To cover its bloody tracks, the Iraqi government, with the help of the US Embassy, has blocked any investigation into these crimes – as UN had demanded – by the US and European Union parliamentary fact-finding missions.

In light of these killings and the three-year illegal and barbaric siege of Camp Ashraf, the Post’s blindness to volume of facts all pointing to Iraq’s systematic and deliberate breach of its commitment toward Ashraf residents, and to the equally abhorring United States’ inaction in the face of Iraq’s repeated violation of its so-called written assurances to the United States, is ominously suspect.

Astonishingly, in line with Iran’s thirty-year-old policy of blaming the MEK’s leadership for whatever atrocities Iran’s ruling tyrants have committed against the organization – a ploy widely used by Maliki following the July 2009 and April 2011 attacks – the Post’s editorial, in an ultimate act of falsification, sinisterly attempts to shift the blame for an impending massacre away from Maliki – and by extension from the Obama administration – to MEK’s leadership, accusing it of making “unrealistic demands.”  We must repeat to the Post the following facts:

• Camp Ashraf residents were recognized by the United States as protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention and as such the US provided them protection until January 2009. According to article 45 of the Convention, that responsibility does not elapse if the new protecting power (Iraq since 2009) does not have the capacity and the intent to provide protection. Iraq has failed on both fronts and thus from a legal standpoint the United States, as the original protecting power, is still bound to ensure the residents’ protection whether or not it has a presence in Iraq.
 
• In 2003 and again in 2004, the United States gave written guaranteed commitment of protection to every individual in Ashraf as long as they remain in Iraq. America is, therefore, still morally and legally responsible for their safety and security.
 
• Last September, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) declared that Camp Ashraf residents have applied for refugee status and therefore, under international law as “asylum seekers” they must be able to benefit from basic protection of their security and well-being.

Against this background, the demand by Camp Ashraf residents and its leadership that “U.S. troops or U.N. peacekeeping forces provide security at the new camp,” is indeed completely “realistic” and in line with America’s promises and UNHCR’s declaration.

If the Post’s editorial finds the residents’ morally and legally justified and actionable demand “unrealistic,” then it is acting as a de facto voice of an administration that is dishonoring America by reneging on its commitment to a group of unarmed men, women and children, who in the words of Brig. Gen. David Phillips, former Commandant of U.S. Army Military Police Corps and former Senior Commanding Officer at Camp Ashraf, were vetted and completely investigated by several US agencies which were not able to find an iota of evidence linking any of them to any act of violence.

Furthermore, the Washington Post shamelessly refers to some of the most patriotic Americans as a “stable of handsomely-paid” mouthpieces of the MEK. This is astonishing as the paper itself has never wasted any time to support the misguided policy of the US State Department to designate the MEK as a terrorist organization in 1997 for purely political considerations and appeasement of the mullahs of Tehran. The designation, legally and factually discredited and revoked in the United Kingdom, France, and the European Union, and declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Federal Court of Appeals as it violated the due process rights of the MEK, has been used by the Maliki government as a pretext to slaughter the residents.

Additionally, the editorial alleges that the MEK was responsible for killing Americans more than four decades ago when multiple credible independent sources have provided ample countervailing evidence that the current MEK in its entirety has had nothing to do with it.

The Washington Post is wise to remember that history may not judge kindly its expediency in support of an administration that seeks reelection by throwing a group of innocent men and 1,000 Muslim women, who have already been victimized by the barbarism of Iraqi soldiers, into the wolves. Unfortunately, in this case of the impending humanitarian catastrophe of monumental dimension, the Post has opted to take the wrong side and has issued a license to murder the residents by blaming the victims instead of the butchers.

SOURCE:  US Committee for Camp Ashraf Residents (USCCAR)

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/usccar-strongly-condemns-washington-posts-editorial-for-giving-iraqs-maliki-license-to-murder-camp-ashraf-residents-135674098.html

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Camp Ashraf “massacre” must be stopped

December 15, 2011 by

 THE INDEPENDENT

America’s involvement in the second Gulf War in Iraq – whether you were in favour of it or opposed it – is about to end. The Prime Minister of the “new” Iraq was in Washington this week as the guest of President Obama.

Most people assumed that any future government would abide by the principles of human rights and democracy.  But there is an inconvenient truth that is hard to understand for the families of our soldiers who died there and the troops themselves who were wounded. It is hard for the families of unknown number of Iraqi civilians who died there, and for the Iranian dissidents stranded there at Camp Ashraf in Iraq.

The truth is that Prim Minister Nouri al-Maliki, has apparently turned out to be a stooge of the Iranian regime who seems to have a disregard for basic human rights and international law. Camp Ashraf has become the barometer for his disregard of the world community and those who died to bring him to office.

This Camp is home to 3400 members of Iran’s main opposition group, the MEK, an organization that epitomizes the spirit of the Arab Spring. The MEK hopes to one day replace the brutal regime in Iran with a democracy. Their manifesto espouses the desire to create equal rights between men and women, for Iran to have a free press, be non-nuclear Iran and espouse other forward-thinking policies.

The reason for this brutal treatment lies in Al Maliki’s close relationship with Iran and that country’s desire to wipe out its main enemy. Iran’s influence within Iraq has included flooding the country with IEDs to pressuring Maliki to attack the mullahs’ opponents. This influence must be stopped.

The oppression of these residents and Al Maliki’s disregard for international law started within the first few weeks of Iraqi forces taking over security of the Camp. He gave assurances that the residents would be given “humane treatment”; yet over the past two years, they have been psychologically tortured 24 hours a day with 300 loudspeakers blaring at their doorstep. They have been denied access to food, fuel, and medicines, resulting in the deaths of a number of residents. But most disturbingly, Iraqi forces have stormed this Camp of unarmed civilians twice, murdering resulting in the deaths of 47 people. Video footage of these events showed unarmed civilians apparently being shot in the head at close range with semiautomatic weapons, as well as being run over by Humvee vehicles. It was condemned by many international bodies as nothing short of a massacre.

The situation has now reached a crisis point. The regime in Iran realizes that it is close to achieving its goal of wiping out its opposition and has pressured the Iraqi government to close the Camp by the end of the year and to disperse the residents throughout Iraq.

Considering the Iraqi armed forces’ history in relation to Camp Ashraf, and their closeness to the regime in Iran, this statement is widely seen as nothing short of a declaration of war on these unarmed civilians. The Iraqis say they would allow the UNHCR to interview the residents once they have been moved and that they would allow UN monitors constant access to them. If that’s the case, why doesn’t the Iraqi army allow these interviews to take place in Camp Ashraf? Why have it been doing its utmost to disrupt the UNHCR from carrying out its work? The reality must be that Nouri al-Maliki knows that if the UNHCR interviews these civilians, they will be granted asylum in third countries and the Iraqis, acting at Tehran’s behest, will have lost the opportunity to destroy the spirit of Ashraf and its people.

This is the same man who six hours prior to the last ” massacre” in April promised the residents of Camp Ashraf and the U.S. Embassy that he had no intention of using violence. Six hours later, 36 civilians lay dead. It appears he can no longer be trusted not to do Iran’s dirty work.

There is still time for a peaceful solution to this dilemma. The international community must pressure the Iraqi government to cancel its end-of-year dead line. This would allow the UNHCR the time to carry out its refugee status interviews with the residents. The final step, and one which would hopefully bring about a happy ending, would be for the residents to be transferred to third countries.

These three steps are achievable – the only obstacle is the Iraqi government and Nouri al-Maliki.

This international pressure must take place now. There is less than three weeks until the dead line and an unavoidable bloody outcome. With al-Maliki visiting America, the U.S.  has a wonderful opportunity to apply diplomatic pressure. The U.S.  should do this to show solidarity with the spirit of the Arab spring; it should do it for the residents of Camp Ashraf; and it should do it so that the all those who died in Iraq did not die in vain.

America is the country that signed a personal pact with every single member of the Camp, giving them protected person status. America must continue to give them what they were promised – protection from the despots in Iran and their henchmen in Iraq. Anything less will leave the US politically and legally complicit in any future bloodshed.
The clock is ticking and time is running out. The U.S. and President Obama must keep their promise to the freedom seeking people of Camp Ashraf.

The UK government as the major partner in the coalition that brought about current government in Iraq is also equally responsible and must act to stop the massacre and persuade the UN to send blue helmets to protect the residents of Ashraf.

Mark Williams is Liberal-Democrat Member of Parliament for Ceredigion and a member of British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2011/12/15/camp-ashraf-massacre-must-be-stopped/

Filed Under: Camp Ashraf, News

Obama must act before the US implicates itself in a war crime at Camp Ashraf

December 15, 2011 by

 NEW INTERNATIONALIST

It is rare that the US will find itself singing from the same hymn sheet as the brutal religious theocracy in Iran. As I write this letter, a peculiar and tragic piece of politics is being played out in Camp Ashraf, Iraq, which has, inconceivably, united these two opposite parties.

Camp Ashraf is home to 3,400 members of the MEK, Iran’s main opposition group. They have been fighting for decades to create a democratic state in Iran.

During the Clinton administration, the US government declared that the MEK were terrorists, in order to bring Iran and its apparently moderate president Khatami to the negotiation table. It was appeasement of the worst kind. Over the past decade the 4,000 parliamentarians across the globe who have shown solidarity with the MEK have managed to get the ‘terrorist’ designation removed from EU and British lists. But despite support from numerous members of congress, including former US presidential candidate Howard Dean, the US is still doing Iran’s bidding by keeping this classification.

This failed piece of foreign policy is now being used to murder innocent civilians in Camp Ashraf.

In early 2004, US armed forces took over security of the camp and gave personal assurances to each and every person living there, designating them as protected persons under the fourth Geneva Convention. Unfortunately, they have received anything but protection.

The security of the camp was passed over to the Iraqi government in 2009. Within days, Iranian intelligence officials were allowed onto the site and their campaign of torture and intimidation started. Iran’s influence in Iraq has been growing over the past few years. The vast majority of US soldiers die at the hands of Iranian made IEDs (improvised explosive device). The residents have had vital supplies, such as food, fuel and medicine, restricted causing unnecessary deaths. The worst of this illegal treatment has been two military attacks on the camp. In April 2011, the Iraqi army attacked and massacred 36 unarmed civilians. Video footage which was released by the residents showed Iraqi soldiers shooting residents in the head and neck from point-blank range using semi automatic weapons. UNAMI (United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq) officials examined the deceased and confirmed the manner of their deaths. This tragic event was widely considered to be a war crime.

Unfortunately, one of the excuses which the Iraqi government has used is that these people are terrorists.

The Iraqi government and their puppet masters in Iran want MEK members to be removed the camp. Residents have declared that, despite living in Iraq for over 25 years, they are willing to go. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has announced that they are ready and waiting to assess each resident for refugee status. This would then allow them to be moved to third countries which would accept them.

Over the past few months the Iraqi government has refused the UNHCR access to camp residents. The route to a peaceful solution is available, but the reality is that leaders in Iraq and Iran are not looking for a peaceful ending. Iran realizes that it has the opportunity, and a willing ally, to wipe out its main opposition and they are hell-bent on achieving this.

Rather than allow the UNHCR access, the Iraqi government has announced that it will close the camp at the end of the year and that all residents will be relocated to other camps within Iraq. At the point of relocation, the UNHCR will be allowed access.

Residents have stated that they are only willing to be relocated within Iraq if these new locations are protected by UN blue helmets. In addition, they do not want to be moved until the UNHCR has recorded the names of every member of the camp prior to relocation. This is an important point.

Iranian security agents and their Iraqi counterparts have been working on an operation to murder many of these residents in transit, before any international body has recorded their details.  

The reality is that Iraq’s treatment of these innocent civilians over the past few years renders any promise they make utterly worthless.

Following Iraqi President’s Nouri Al-Maliki’s visit to the Oval Office earlier this week, President Obama must now make it abundantly clear that Camp Ashraf’s residents must be treated humanely. Al-Maliki must abandon his end of year deadline, as well the idea of relocation. The UNHCR must be allowed access to the residents in Camp Ashraf. If these points are followed, the saga of Camp Ashraf could come to a peaceful end.

Saeid Zabeti’s family fled Iran following the 1979 revolution. He has six family members currently living at Camp Ashraf.

http://www.newint.org/blog/2011/12/15/camp-ashraf-threatened-closure/

Filed Under: Camp Ashraf, News

Decision to close Iran exile camp ‘irreversible’: Iraq PM

December 15, 2011 by

AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

Iranian-Americans wave banners and shout slogans against Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri-al-Maliki December 13, 2011 near the US Chamber of Commerce in Washington, DC. Simultaneous with the visit of Maliki, to the Chamber of Commerce, Iranian-Americans and relatives of the 3400 Iranian dissidents at Camp Ashraf held a rally against Maliki and his plans to, at behest of the Iranian regime, close Camp Ashraf and forcibly relocate its residents by the end of the year. The family members of Ashraf residents and Iranian-Americans believe this would prelude a massacre of defenseless residents of the camp. Iraqi Armed Forces, under the command of Maliki, violently attacked Camp Ashraf twice -- in July 2009 and in April 2011 -- killing 47 and wounding more than 1,000 unarmed residents. Iranian-Americans believe Maliki should be held accountable for the crimes he committed against humanity. The residents of Camp Ashraf signed an agreement with the US Government in 2003, guaranteeing their protection until their final disposition. AFP PHOTO/Karen BLEIER (Photo credit should read KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images)

BAGHDAD — Iraq’s decision to close a camp housing Iranian dissidents by year-end is “irreversible,” Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told AFP on Thursday, rejecting UN calls for a delay to avoid bloodshed.

Camp Ashraf, north of Baghdad, houses some 3,400 Iranian refugees hostile to the regime in Tehran. It is controlled by the People’s Mujahedeen, which Washington blacklists as a terrorist group.

“The decision we made is irreversible, especially because this organisation refused the visit of a UN representative to Camp Ashraf,” Maliki said.

“They’ve rejected the UN plan, which means this is a criminal gang and we cannot permit a criminal gang to remain here,” he added.

Saddam Hussein allowed the rebel People’s Mujahedeen to set up the camp when his forces were at war with Iran in the 1980s.

When Saddam was overthrown in the US-led invasion of 2003, the camp came under US military protection but US forces handed over security responsiblity to the Baghdad authorities in January 2009.

The Iraqi government says the camp is a threat to its relations with neighbouring Iran and is demanding that it close by December 31.

But last week the United Nations appealed for an extension to the deadline to allow more time for a solution to be negotiated with the camp’s residents who are refusing to move unless they are given UN protection.

The positions of the residents and the government “remain far apart,” the UN envoy to Iraq, Martin Kobler, told the UN Security Council, appealing to the international community to find new homes for the exiles.

In Paris, an exile Iranian group challenged Maliki’s statement that UN officials were not allowed to visit the camp.

“Last week, UN representatives were able to enter Ashraf two times,” said Mohamad Mohadessine, an official of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a group opposed to the Tehran regime.

“By these abject lies, Maliki does nothing other than prepare the terrain for a massacre of the residents of Ashraf and to counter muliple international apeals to delay the closing of Ashraf,” he added in a statement.

The camp has been in the spotlight since a controversial April raid by Iraqi security forces left at least 36 people dead and scores injured. Residents said the Iraqi forces attacked them.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hKiy836ZHWmvUNlwLgoArO7zH1Pg

Filed Under: Camp Ashraf, News

Camp Ashraf refugees get all-party support

December 14, 2011 by

CBC News

MPs say Iraq’s Camp Ashraf residents have been ‘indiscriminately massacred’

Government and opposition MPs concerned for the safety of 3,400 refugees — predominantly Iranians — facing expulsion from Iraq’s Camp Ashraf have joined forces to call for assistance from Canadian allies.

Residents are mostly members of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq of Iran, which is listed as a terrorist organization in Canada and the U.S. The group opposes the current regime in Iran.

After a deadly raid on the camp last spring, supporters fear for the safety of residents if they are forced to leave the camp. The Iraqi government wants the refugees out by Dec. 31, and its officials say they want the UN to repatriate the residents.

There are two Canadian citizens living at the camp.

A House subcommittee on human rights has been studying the situation at Camp Ashraf, Liberal MP Irwin Cotler said Wednesday morning.

“We have held a series of meetings, heard chilling testimony about the situation and dangers facing the residents in Camp Ashraf,” Cotler said.

Subcommittee members say the residents are unarmed, defenceless, and characterized as refugees by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

“The citizens of Camp Ashraf have faced ongoing harassment and intimidation by the Iraqi and Iranian governments, and twice this year alone residents of the camp have been indiscriminately massacred,” the subcommittee said in a news release.

Canadians to visit camp Wednesday

Conservative MP Russ Hiebert says he has met with Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird about the issue, and says Baird has been working with Canadian allies “to pressure the Iraqi government to protect the residents of Camp Ashraf.”

Hiebert says Baird is sending Canadian officials to visit the camp on Wednesday to monitor the situation, and that Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney met with UN and Iraqi officials in Geneva.

The subcommittee passed a motion calling for Iraq to allow international observers into the camp and to extend the deadline. They’re also asking the Canadian government to push for a UN Security Council resolution to put a protective force at the camp.

“The reason that we’re gathered here from every party in the House is because we are all seized with the urgency of avoiding a possible catastrophe,” Hiebert said, calling it a precarious situation.

“Right now the lives of 3,400 people are at serious risk.”

The deadline must be extended to give the UN High Commissioner for Refugees more time to evaluate individual refugee eligibility, he said.

The MPs are also concerned the residents of Camp Ashraf could be forcibly transferred to countries where they may face persecution.

NDP MP Wayne Marston says the humanitarian need on the ground is self-evident.

“There’s just over 3,000 people at significant and immediate risk at this time.”

 http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/12/14/pol-iraq-camp-ashraf.html

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Refugees or terrorists? They’ll soon be dead

December 14, 2011 by

TORONTO SUN

They are half-a-world away and there are only seven of them, but the members of Parliament on a House of Commons human rights committee are doing whatever they can for the 3,400 refugees at Camp Ashraf, north of Baghdad, who, the MPs believe, are in imminent danger.

There are two Canadians among the refugees. They remain at Ashraf voluntarily despite offers from Canadian consular officials to get them out of what could, within days, become a very dicey situation.

Last month, diplomats convinced nine other Canadians to leave the camp.

Today, Canadian officials will travel from Jordan to Camp Ashraf, at some risk to their own personal security, to check on conditions and on the two Canadians who refuse to leave.

The rest, though, are mostly Iranian refugees opposed to the ayatollahs who govern their homeland. Their political organization was created in the 1960s and is called the National Liberation Army of the Mujahedin e-Khalq or MeK.

During the Iran-Iraq war they were armed by Saddam Hussein and used by that dictator to kill many thousands of Iranians.

They are also alleged to have killed Kurds, at Hussein’s urging, and committed other violent acts in the name of their cause. But since 2001, those at Camp Ashraf have given up their weapons.

Nonetheless, they are, above all else, enemies of the regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

But Iran’s president has a new friend in Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and, as soon as U.S. forces withdraws all its troops from Iraq at the end of the year, Maliki — many experts will tell you — will hand those 3,400 refugees and enemies of Ahmadinejad over to Ahmadinejad himself.

“They will face the prison and the gallows (and) the fight for democracy in Iran will take a severe blow,” Wes Martin told this small group of Canadian MPs last week. Martin is a retired U.S. marine colonel who was once the commander of Camp Ashraf while it was under U.S. control.

So why doesn’t the U.S. or its allies in the West save these 3,400 refugees?

We won’t because officially the MeK are all terrorists. Officially, we think they’re the bad guys because of those violent acts committed a generation or more ago.

Canada has designated the MeK as a terrorist organization since 2005 and just re-affirmed that status in 2010. The U.S. has had them on the list since 1997.

Because MeK is on the list, banks and financial institutions are required to freeze its assets. Listing also prohibits all persons in Canada, as well as Canadians abroad, from knowingly dealing with this entity and its assets.

Martin — whose other job in Iraq was being in charge of all anti-terrorism operations for the entire U.S. military — thinks we’ve got it backwards.

“I cannot say with enough emphasis that the MeK is not a terrorist organization,” Martin told MPs. “As a matter of fact, I found just the opposite when I was commander of Camp Ashraf, and they were my allies.”

Scott Reid, the Conservative MP who chairs this human rights committee, and all his MP colleagues had trouble Tuesday squaring Martin’s assessment with evaluations provided to them by Canadian bureaucrats who had never visited Ashraf.

“They’re just people,” he told his committee Tuesday. “They’re probably going to be dead people pretty soon. That’s our worry.”

 http://www.torontosun.com/2011/12/13/refugees-or-terrorists-theyll-soon-be-dead

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Iranian regime’s Quds Force, MOIS and Maliki’s forces prepare for attack on Camp Ashraf

December 13, 2011 by

NCRI Website

– Breaking fuel supply pipes and destroying the fuel reservoir for the power facilities of Ashraf
– Tearing down the southern fence and transferring the battalion responsible for 209 and 2011 massacres to Ashraf

NCRI – Agents of the Iranian regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), the terrorist Quds Force and the Iraqi forces under the command of Nouri al-Maliki, have intensified pressure on Camp Ashraf residents and the siege against them. They are setting the stage for attack and slaughter the residents by various means. 

In early hours of Tuesday December 13, the MOIS agents aided by Iraqi forces under the command of Maliki, broke fuel pipes of Ahraf’s power generating station (Ahrar generating station) and spilled on the ground all of the stations fuel reserves totaling 52000 liters. (Pictured attached).

The act of sabotage is taking place while the Iraqi committee in Maliki’s office tasked with suppression of Ashraf  has been preventing the entry of gasoline for the past 11 months, and has prevented entry of diesel fuel since seven months ago. The fuel in these reservoirs was the only reserve for Ashraf power generating station.

Ahrar station was launched in 2007 to provide part of the Ashraf critical systems’ power such as hospital, food storage, water pumping station, bakery, etc. and the cost of buying and installing generators and related equipments totaling $5 million was all paid by the residents.

This station is the only facility to generate power and heat for Ashraf residents during blackouts. Writing off this station due to lack of fuel, makes the situation for the patients and many of the wounded in April 8th deadly attack who are in critical conditions, much more dangerous.
 
In another development, at 3:00 am on Tuesday December 13, a number of MOIS agents, who have been engaged in psychological torture of the residents with 300 loudspeakers for past two years, tore down the southern protective fence of Ashraf in several points with the support of Iraqi forces, in order to pave the way for infiltrations and further criminal acts against Ashraf residents. The plan was foiled by quick reaction of the residents, and the agents quickly fled the scene (Pictures attached)

At the same time, reports obtained from inside the Iranian regime’s Revolutionary Guards Corp indicate that Maliki intends to once again redeploy the Iraqi Battalion 3, Brigade 37 of the army’s 9th division in Ashraf. This force had the biggest role in two massacres of July 2009 and April 2011. The goal is making the preparation to implement the suppressive deadline and to launch a large scale slaughter in Ashraf. A number of Battalion’s officers with close links to the Quds force who had been transferred out of this battalion, will be returned.
 
These incidents clearly show that the countdown to the big massacre in Ashraf by the religious fascism ruling Iran and their proxies in Iraq has begun. The Iranian resistance calls upon the United Nations and the US government for immediate action for protection of Ashraf residents by the US or UN forces and to prevent a bloodbath.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
December 13, 2011

http://www.ncr-iran.org/en/ncri-statements/ashraf/11528-iranian-regimes-quds-force-mois-and-malikis-forces-prepare-for-attack-on-camp-ashraf

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As U.S. Withdraws From Iraq, We Must Still Keep Our Promise to the Residents of Camp Ashraf

December 13, 2011 by

Fox News

Monday, President Obama welcomed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to the White House with the declaration that U.S. troops were leaving Iraq with “heads held high.” But while administration spin-miesters are promoting the so-called deepening strategic partnership between the United States and Iraq, an emboldened and increasingly defiant Maliki is quickly moving forward with sinister preparations of his own that threaten to jettison President Obama’s mission-accomplished moment.

In collusion with the Mullahs terrorist regime in Tehran, the Iraqi Prime Minister is planning a Srebrenica-style massacre of 3,400 unarmed Iranian dissidents living in his country at Camp Ashraf—each and every one of whom was given a written guarantee of protection by the U.S. government. I was the general who delivered that promise to the residents of Camp Ashraf in 2004.

Camp Ashraf is home to members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) who are “protected persons” under the Geneva Conventions. As the main Iranian opposition movement, MEK is committed to non-violent regime change in Iran and a democratic nuclear-free Iranian future. MEK has provided the US with valuable intelligence about the existence of multiple nuclear sites scattered in different parts of Iran. For these reasons, the Mullahs’ regime in Iran considers MEK an existential threat, and is enlisting a willing Maliki in their evil enterprise to annihilate the residents of Camp Ashraf.

So it’s no surprise that Maliki set the stage for his White House visit by refusing U.S., EU, and U.N. demands to postpone the arbitrary and illegal deadline he imposed for closing Camp Ashraf and making it impossible for UNHCR to register and resettle the residents safely in other countries.

That Maliki’s deadline coincides perfectly with Obama’s date for withdrawal of the US presence in Iraq—Dec 31–, is no accident: It sends a clear and unmistakable message to Washington that the Obama-Maliki relationship is a litmus test for the President’s legacy in Iraq and American credibility throughout the region.

“Closing” Camp Ashraf, is Maliki’s euphemism for dispersing these defenseless men women, and children throughout Iraq where they can be more easily killed out of sight of the international community or kidnapped and brought to Iran where they face execution.

Both Maliki and the Mullahs rationalize the atrocities at Camp Ashraf with the excuse that America has maintained MEK as a listed Foreign Terrorist Organization since 1997. The Clinton administration initially added MEK to the State Department’s blacklist as a good will gesture to Iran—mistakenly thought at the time to be moving towards moderation, and the designation was subsequently maintained in an effort to persuade Iran to abandon their nuclear program. But today, we can plainly see that Iran is no closer to moderation; its nuclear ambitions are actually closer to fulfillment, and Obama’s failure to de-list MEK, in the absence of any legal or factual basis, continues to stymie the prospects for democratic change in Iran.

It was about ten years ago that I first learned of the existence of the MEK. Little did I know then that in a very short time I would be personally involved with this group and its fight for survival. With a looming deadline coming on December 31, my fond memories of these Iranians might turn out be just that… memories. But this could be averted.

I know first-hand what it means to suffer at the hands of terrorists – I was the director of security for the Army at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Shortly thereafter, I deployed as the senior military policeman responsible for many missions in Iraq, including the safety and security of the residents of Camp Ashraf.

I was there when they voluntarily disarmed in return for U.S. promises of protection. I saw what remained of their other facilities after they were looted and destroyed by Maliki’s forces. I was there when each and every person of the MEK was biometrically identified, vetted, screened, and interviewed by the U.S. military. Did we find any terrorists or criminals or undesirables among the several thousand men and women? No. Each was thoroughly investigated and not one was identified as having any linkage to criminal acts. A few had unpaid parking tickets. That might seem frivolous, but I mention it to show how thoroughly we investigated each member of the MEK at Camp Ashraf.

I really had to step back and wonder why they are identified as terrorists by the State Department. I tried very hard but I could not find any credible allegation, any overt or covert crime, any reason why this group carried the FTO designation that Maliki and the Mullahs cite as a rationale for their atrocities.

I witnessed firsthand equal rights in action at Camp Ashraf. I spent significant time living and working at Camp Ashraf. I got to know almost every senior leader of the MEK at Ashraf, and many of the residents. After the vetting process was completed I brought the message back to the leadership of Ashraf that they were now classified as protected persons under the Geneva Convention and I was personally charged with their safety and security. And, even though I’m no longer directly responsible for safety and security at Camp Ashraf, I still feel morally responsible, as all of Americans who take pride in our country and our word should be.

I had open and unrestricted access to every area of Camp Ashraf. I staged independent, unannounced inspections and never, discovered any indication of anyone being kept there against his or her will by the Camp’s leadership, as some detractors mistakenly allege. And I really tried to uncover proof of those allegations. But the only thing I was ever able to prove without a doubt was that the allegations were false. Were there any issues between my units, my forces, and the MEK at Ashraf? Of course! But they were few and far between, and all were resolved by simple discussions and mutual understanding.

I spent well over a year seeking definitive guidance regarding a way to resolve the humanitarian crisis at Camp Ashraf. I brought many senior leaders of the coalition forces to Ashraf. They were all stunned that we were keeping these defenseless men, women and children in such limbo. I left Iraq frustrated after that tour, and a year later when I returned, I saw that there had been no change. There was still no definitive guidance. During that tour I was charged with rapidly rebuilding the Iraqi police, and simultaneously I was General Petraeus’s expert on all police and security operations, including security at Camp Ashraf.

We gave the people at Camp Ashraf a promise of protection following a very thorough vetting process—and I know this for a fact because I delivered that promise. I feel so strongly about it that even now, I would return to Ashraf to be an intermediary to ensure the safe relocation of the residents.

I fear that unless we have some type of intermediary, some type of initiative very soon, some due resolve, given the December 31 deadline imposed on Ashraf by the government of Iraq at behest of Tehran, another tragedy will occur. We’ve seen members of this organization viciously attacked in the recent past and dozens of them, young and old killed and about 1,000 wounded by the Iraqi armed forces. In a few weeks, if the deadline to close Camp Ashraf is not postponed, we could see an even greater tragedy.

A cry must be sounded loud and clear—the very same cry that was sounded by thousands of Iranian Americans who stood outside the White House on December 12 as the President was meeting with Maliki, that we will not stand for violence against the defenseless people of Camp Ashraf. Maliki’s arbitrary and illegal deadline must be postponed, his plans for forcible dispersion of Ashraf residents in Iraq shelved, and the U.N. refugee agency encouraged to find the residents sanctuary in third countries.

Evil thrives in darkness, so let’s shed some light on Camp Ashraf: I tried to find a terrorist at Camp Ashraf and I could not. I tried to find people held against their will at Camp Ashraf. I could not. All I found there were people committed to non-violence and a free and democratic Iranian future.

I only hope the world is listening. The time to act is now. This is more than a local issue: the people of “Camp Ashraf,” have relatives in the United States and Europe who care deeply about their fate.

As we exit from Iraq, the Obama White House should take care not to undercut the West’s fight against Iranian nuclear breakout by giving Iraq’s Shia prime minister the impression that the U.S. is a paper tiger that will easily abandon its solemn promises to Ashraf residents by sending them to face certain death in the Iraqi desert.

General David Phillips (ret.) is the former Chief of Military Policy at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri and forme commander of all police operations in Iraq which included the protection of Camp Ashraf.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/12/13/as-withdraw-from-iraq-must-still-keep-our-promise-to-residents-camp-ashraf

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Bay Area Iranian-Americans fear forced closure of Iraq’s Camp Ashraf will lead to a massacre

December 12, 2011 by

San Jose Mercury News

Iranian journalist Asieh Rakhshani, who lived in Richmond and Albany for most of her childhood, was killed April 8 in a raid in Camp Ashraf in Iraq during a clash with Iraqi forces. ((Courtesy of Hamid Yazdanpanah))

For years, a Bay Area couple had been trying to publicize the danger that dissidents from their native Iran faced at a camp across the border in Iraq. Then, in April, Parviz and Ensieh Yazdanpanah’s greatest fear came true in a very personal way: Their adopted daughter was one of three dozen unarmed people killed at Camp Ashraf by Iraqi troops.

A family photo album that includes childhood pictures of birthday parties ends with the images of 30-year-old Asieh Rakhshani bleeding to death in an Ashraf hospital.

“She died hoping for peace and freedom in the region,” her mother said, breaking into tears.

On Monday, the couple and hundreds of others from the Bay Area’s Iranian-American community again raised their voices in protest in front of the White House, where President Barack Obama welcomed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the man whom the Yazdanpanahs accuse of ordering the attack on the camp that killed their daughter.

Rakhshani, who was training to be a journalist, had returned to Iraq to volunteer at the camp. When Iraqi troops attacked April 8, firing into crowds, she captured it on video.

In the video, “you can hear her voice shouting, ‘Allahu akbar,’ ” or “God is great,” her mother said. Then Rakhshani witnessed the shooting of a friend nearby. “Her friend next to her fell, and she’s screaming, ‘They shot her! They shot her!’ … While she was shouting, they shot her, and the camera rolled off her hand.”

Facing a bloodbath

Camp Ashraf is home to a now-disarmed Iranian militia that once waged war on Iran with the support of Saddam Hussein. With the rise of an Iraqi government with close ties to Tehran, the people in the camp are in an increasingly precarious position. Complicating their fate, the organization that controls the camp is listed by the U.S. as a terrorist organization and described by many as a cult.

But the Yazdanpanah family says the 3,400 people at Camp Ashraf are facing a bloodbath if the Iraqi government follows through on plans to forcibly close it by the end of the year.

“Their goal is to take them one by one, put them in a bigger jail inside Iraq, and from there deport them to Iran,” said Ensieh Yazdanpanah, 50, of El Sobrante. “And if that happens, we know they’re going to be killed. They’re going to be tortured, and they’re going to be killed.”

She said a few thousand Iranian-Americans, including about 500 from the Bay Area, showed up at Monday’s protest, at which former FBI Director Louis Freeh and former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge spoke in support of extending the Dec. 31 deadline for the camp to close.

The residents of Ashraf are members of the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran (PMOI, also known as MEK for its Farsi initials), a group that arose in 1965 in opposition to Shah Reza Pahlavi and later fought the clerics who overthrew him in 1979. The group has often been described as having a Marxist/Islamic ideology, but members say it favors democracy, freedom and religious tolerance in an Iran free of nuclear weapons.

Detractors say the group engages in cultlike practices under its leaders, husband-and-wife team Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, which include forced divorces and tape-recorded sessions of self-criticism designed to ensure loyalty. Older members were reportedly forced to divorce in the late 1980s, and younger members are said to have been pressured into vows of celibacy.

The PMOI moved its headquarters to Iraq in 1986, during the Iran-Iraq War, and Saddam allowed the group to build Camp Ashraf, 65 miles north of Baghdad, and helped to finance and arm its attacks on Iran. The militia is widely believed to have aided Saddam in the brutal suppression of uprisings by Kurds in northern Iraq and Shiites in southern Iraq in 1991, a charge it denies.

Charges of cultism

Half of the group’s fighters and most of its commanders were women, according to a New York Times Magazine writer, Elizabeth Rubin, who visited Ashraf in 2003. She described them as an “army of Stepford wives,” robotic and adoring of their leaders, and portrayed the movement as “bizarre” and cultish, with children nurtured from birth to be fanatically loyal.

The U.S. State Department designated the PMOI a foreign terrorist organization in 1997, primarily citing its attacks against Iran. The European Union removed the group from its terror list in 2009, and its U.S. status has been under legal challenge for years.

Supporters say the group has long renounced militant activity. It gave up its weapons in 2003 in exchange for U.S. protection.

But the U.S. had transferred control of the camp to Iraq by April, when the attack came that killed Rakhshani.

The Yazdanpanah family adopted the girl as a young child when her real parents, who were living at Ashraf, asked them to take her in for her safety. She grew up in the Bay Area and graduated from Albany High School but returned to Ashraf in 1999.

“My sister made a choice to return to her parents, when she had every opportunity to live a free and easy life in the United States,” said her adoptive brother, Hamid Yazdanpanah, a 25-year-old attorney in San Francisco. “Instead, she chose a path of hardship and resistance. … My sister died working as an amateur journalist trying to document the oppression and massacre of innocent people.”

http://www.mercurynews.com/nation-world/ci_19532354

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