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U.N. urges Iraq to move Iranian dissidents to new camp

February 15, 2012 by

REUTERS

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Iraq on Wednesday to speed up the transfer of Iranian dissidents at a camp near Baghdad to a temporary facility which the dissident group has compared to a prison.

Camp Ashraf, 40 miles from Baghdad, has been home for 25 years to the People’s Mujahideen Organization of Iran, or PMOI, an Iranian opposition group the United States and Iran officially consider a terrorist organization.

The current Iraqi government has never concealed its desire get rid of the camp. Under pressure from the United Nations and European Union, Baghdad extended its deadline to close Ashraf late last year from December 31, 2011 to April 30, 2012.

But Ban is now urging Baghdad not to wait until April.

“The Secretary-General believes that the time has come to start the relocation process without further delay,” Ban’s press office said in a statement. “He urges the Iraqi authorities and the residents of Camp Ashraf to continue to cooperate and complete the process in a peaceful manner.”

The statement said the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has “confirmed that the infrastructure and facilities at the temporary transit location are in accordance with … international humanitarian standards.”

It was not immediately clear how the Iranians at Camp Ashraf reacted to Ban’s call to accelerate their move out of the camp.

Earlier this month a spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the PMOI’s political wing, dismissed suggestions from U.N. special envoy to Iraq Martin Kobler that conditions at the new facility – Camp Liberty – were acceptable.

The spokesman, Shahin Gobadi, said in an email the new facility would have “prison conditions,” with residents denied the freedom to come and go and without access to lawyers and medical services.

Camp residents will also be banned from taking vehicles and other property with them, apart from “individual belongings,” and will only be able to contact U.N. officials by telephone, Gobadi said.

NEW CONDITIONS

In an article in Wednesday’s New York Times, however, Kobler said the new camp would have medical facilities and would be monitored around the clock by U.N. observers. Residents would be interviewed by the U.N. refugee agency to determine their eligibility to resettle as refugees outside Iraq, he added.

Camp Ashraf continued to operate after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. But its future became unclear after Washington turned it over to Iraq in 2009. Baghdad has repeatedly said it does not want the guerrilla group on Iraqi soil.

Kobler said Camp Ashraf’s leaders, after agreeing in principle to move out an initial group of 400 residents, had hesitated in recent days to do so, placing new conditions on the transfer to which the Iraqi government rejected.

“The government’s patience is wearing thin, and further delay could lead to provocation and violence,” he said. “Change is understandably unsettling for the residents, but maintaining the status quo is neither a safe nor viable option.”

In the 1970s, the PMOI led a guerrilla campaign against the U.S.-backed Shah of Iran but after the 1979 Islamic revolution turned against Iran’s new clerical rulers. It was hosted in Iraq by former leader Saddam Hussein, a bitter foe of Iran.

Late last year, there were several rocket attacks on Camp Ashraf, which the NCRI blamed on the Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps “and its Iraqi agents.”

In April 2011, Ashraf was the scene of clashes between residents and Iraqi security forces, during which 34 people were killed, according to a U.N. investigation.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/15/us-iraq-iran-un-idUSTRE81E2B520120215

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Ashraf, the litmus test for our democratic values

February 15, 2012 by

UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL

LONDON, Feb. 15 (UPI) — The vexing problem of Iran is the most difficult, complex and arguably over the next several years, the most consequential regional security issue the world faces today.

In search of a durable solution for the Iranian crisis and Tehran’s quest to acquire nuclear weapons, the mullahs’ enemy within should and could play an integral part.

I was glad to see this issue raised in a cross-Atlantic conference Feb. 11 in Paris. Dozens of dignitaries from the United States and across Europe, told thousands of Iranian expatriates that the West’s approach toward the residents of Camp Ashraf would be a good barometer of its approach toward the Iranian regime and its opponents.

Camp Ashraf, just north of Baghdad, has been home to 3,400 men and women, members of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, the main Iranian opposition movement, for almost 26 years.

In recent years, they have been under permanent siege, surrounded by gun-toting Iraqi guards, barbed wire and loud speakers for their psychological torture that remind them periodically just how precarious their situation is. Those in need of medical assistance, some suffering from cancer, have been prevented from leaving the camp. Their guards, the Iraqis, have stopped even basic supplies, such as heating oil, from entering.

On two occasions, at behest of the clerical regime in Iran, Iraqi troops raided Camp Ashraf with murderous intent and with weapons supplied by the U.S. military. Nearly 50 unarmed civilians have been killed; some shot, others run over by army vehicles. Hundreds have been injured.

In December 2011 they were facing a deadline imposed by Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister and close ally of the Iranian regime. Camp Ashraf would be closed before the New Year, he told the media. All residents were to be dispersed in small groups. Given that these people are members of the PMOI, you can imagine what fate Maliki had in store for them. They would not have even been granted the right to die alongside the people they loved.

The deadline was pushed back but it has only been replaced by another, equally ugly fate. Camp Ashraf residents are now to be displaced and relocated in Camp Liberty, a former U.S. military base in the Iraqi capital.

How brutally ironic it is that this new concentration camp bears the name “Liberty.”

The 3,400 residents will be housed it what can only be described as veal crates, in an area not much more than half-a-kilometer-square. Martin Kobler, the U.N. special representative to Iraq, has admitted to Ashraf residents that they will still be denied medical facilities. There will be no way to care for the disabled and nowhere to tend to the injured.

There isn’t even any drinking water!

Their instructions mandate that, residents can only take “individual belongings” with them — basically as much as they can carry. Vehicles and other property that they have worked hard for over the 30 years in Ashraf will have to be abandoned.

The Iraqi government has designated Camp Liberty to be a “temporary transfer location.” That’s because it does not meet the standards required of a refugee camp.

Once inside Camp Liberty, the 13-foot-high walls will close in on them and they will no doubt be forgotten. They will have no way of contacting U.N. observers other than by telephone, which the Iraqis will disconnect as they please. They are to be fingerprinted upon arrival, as if they were prisoners of war. One report said Iraqi guards, perhaps even the same guards who killed their friends and relatives, will be based inside the camp.

All of this has been ignored and in a way sanctioned by the U.N. Assistant Mission in Iraq, which seems to have abandoned its role of protector of the underdog. The latest official U.N. declaration that Camp Liberty is fit for purpose flies in the face of all the evidence collected so far.

If this is the case, then why won’t the Iraqi government let Ashraf representatives to conduct inspections? Is the United Nations so keen on appeasing the Tehran regime that it is willing to sacrifice more than 3,000 people on the altar of expediency?

Ashraf is of course just an element in a much bigger power game. Yet it is an important element, actually a very telling one.

As the clerical regime, Iranian people and the world community are watching the West and the United Nations should do the right thing by protecting the rights of Ashraf residents based on International Human Rights Law and send a message of strength to the Iranian leaders. Anything short of that would be disgrace and a huge political folly at such a sensitive time.

The United Nations and United States must make sure the minimum guaranties for the protection and well-being of Ashraf residents are secured. It is essential for them and for the world and a litmus test of our democratic values.

(Baroness Muriel Turner of Camden was deputy speaker of the British House of Lords until 2008. She is a ranking member of British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom.)

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Analysis/Outside-View/2012/02/15/Outside-View-Ashraf-the-litmus-test-for-our-democratic-values/UPI-75321329306720/#ixzz1mbw8FX5q

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Bipartisan Group of U.S. Leaders Calls on State Department to Remove Iranian Dissidents From Terror List, Urges UN to Protect Them

February 14, 2012 by

PRNewswire

NEW YORK, Feb. 14, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — A bipartisan group of former U.S. political and military leaders is calling for the U.S. State Department to remove a prominent Iranian dissident group, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran/Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (PMOI/MeK), from its list of terrorist organizations, saying the classification is unjustified and 3,400 Iranian dissidents housed at Camp Ashraf in Iraq cannot be safely resettled until the change is made.

“What troubles me is the politicization of the national terrorist list,” former Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-RI, said at a conference attended by more than 1,000 Iranian-Americans and community leaders Saturday in New York. “I call on the State Department of the United States to be honest, to be truthful, and to follow the facts.”

The event, entitled, “The Iranian Revolution, Three Decades Later: Prospects for Change, the Role of the Opposition and Camp Ashraf,” was organized by Global Initiative for Democracy (GID) and held at the landmark Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Former Freedom House Executive Director and the GID founder and President Bruce McColm convened the conference. Other panelists included Carl Bernstein, Gen. George W. Casey, Jr., Governor Howard Dean, Lt. Gen. David Deptula, Director Louis Freeh, Mayor Rudy Giuliani, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, and Gen. Hugh Shelton.

In July 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the State Department had violated the due process rights of the MEK and remanded the case to the Secretary. Nearly 19 months later, the State Department has refused to act.

“Why is the State Department waiting so long? What is it, two years now that they have been delaying in making this decision? These are terrorism experts,” former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said of his fellow panelists, who included former US Attorney General Michael Mukasey and former FBI Director Louis Freeh. “They know terrorism. These people know terrorism when they see it. This group [PMOI/MeK] is not a terrorist group. Lift the designation and let’s have our country on the right side [of the law and facts].”

At issue is the fate of some 3,400 Iranian dissidents housed at Camp Ashraf in Iraq, whose protection was handed over to the Iraqi forces in early 2009. The residents of the camp, most of whom belong to the MeK, voluntarily disarmed to U.S. forces in 2003, and were recognized as “protected persons” under the Fourth Geneva Convention by the U.S. government in 2004.

Iraqi forces have twice attacked its inhabitants, resulting in 47 deaths and more than 1,000 injuries. Until the United States revisits its designation of the MeK as a terrorist group, it is unlikely that any of those living at Camp Ashraf would be allowed to emigrate to safety in the United States or any European nation.

Director Freeh said that the group would soon petition the federal appeals court for the District of Columbia to compel U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to revisit the State Department’s terrorism designation for the MEK.

Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert suggested another way to prod the State Department into action.

“The dollars that drive the State Department are appropriated by the Congress,” Hastert said. “And just the threat of holding up part of that appropriation will certainly get the State Department’s attention. I think this is important and it can be done. ”

Another speaker, famed Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein, challenged fellow reporters to cover a story he said had so far escaped the attention it deserves.

“One of the things that we do as journalists, the most important thing we do, is decide what is news. And this is news,” Bernstein said. “And one of the things we do when we decide what is news is we decide what portion of the story is devoted to what we know to be fact and what portion of the story is devoted to what we know is a lie. We have a responsibility not to inflate the lie and give it equal time to what we know is the truth. What is news here is [the failure to delist] is serving the purpose of the Iranian regime. That is news.”

Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean noted that even in spite of the fact the camp has twice been attacked, Camp Ashraf leaders have agreed to send 100 Camp Ashraf residents to Camp Liberty, a new facility in Baghdad which Dean described as being “essentially a prison that would be governed by Iraqi military forces, without preconditions – despite the fact that residents there would have no access to attorneys and no international monitors would be able to evaluate conditions there.”

“This situation is not resolved,” Dean said. “I believe that when one side offers without conditions to do something…then we have an obligation to accept that.” Dean added, “It is immoral to sit and claim you are negotiating in good faith if you can’t take yes for an answer. Our government has a question about whether they are a moral government.” Lt. General Deptula, the former Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance at the Air Force, said “The idea to relocate residents who have already agreed to leave Iraq to Camp Liberty, before departing Iraq, is suspect at best. Does Tehran have a plan to arrest a number of the residents of the camp through its Iraqi surrogates and do they plan to use the relocation process as a means to get their opponents arrested?”

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bipartisan-group-of-us-leaders-calls-on-state-department-to-remove-iranian-dissidents-from-terror-list-urges-un-to-protect-them-2012-02-14

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Bi-Partisan Members of Congress, Prominent Former Officials Call for Peaceful Resettlement of Camp Ashraf Residents, Removal of the Dissidents from Terrorist List

February 7, 2012 by

PRNEWSWIRE

WASHINGTON, Feb. 7, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Members of Congress, prominent scholars and former U.S. officials called for a speedy and peaceful end to the standoff over the fate of 3,400 pro-democracy Iranian dissidents at Camp Ashraf in Iraq, amid warnings that a failure to quickly and safely relocate them would endanger their lives.

“There is a looming genocide that could occur if a number of different things don’t go right in the next weeks and months,” warned former FBI Director Louis Freeh. “Our goal here is to make sure that genocide does not occur.”

“This issue is simple, and at this critical time, the U.S. position must be clear and steadfast,” added Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “International humanitarian standards must be upheld, human rights must be respected – these are universal obligations, and the residents of Camp Ashraf deserve no less.”

The event, held in the Cannon Caucus Room, was sponsored by the House Foreign Affairs Committee member Ted Poe (R-TX). Reps. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), Brad Sherman (D-CA), Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX), Dan Lungren (R-CA) and Trent Franks, (R-AZ) also spoke.

Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat, also spoke in support of those at Camp Ashraf, as did Marc Ginsberg, who served as U.S. Ambassador to Morocco during the Clinton administration.

The residents of Camp Ashraf are members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK). Speakers also called for the State Department to remove the group from its list of terrorist organizations, a move that would speed their relocation, a view shared by renowned lawyer Alan Dershowitz and former New York Senator Alfonse D’Amato.

The group, which was placed on the list in 1997, renounced violence in 2001. When the U.S. military took control of the camp in 2003, it conducted detailed research and analysis on each of the residents there – all of whom voluntarily disarmed – and found no evidence of terrorist activity or association. Parallel investigations by other U.S. and international law enforcement organizations reached the same conclusion.

“A thorough individual background investigation… produced no evidence of wrongdoing, no evidence of criminal acts, and absolutely no evidence of terrorism by these people,” said retired U.S. Army Brig. Gen. David Phillips, who was the camp’s commander. “I didn’t read or get my information second and third hand. I lived it. I experienced it. I know it.”

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose government took over control of Camp Ashraf from the U.S. military in 2009, has claimed that the Iranian dissidents’ presence in Iraq “raises problems with Iran.” In 2009 and 2011, the camp was attacked by Iraqi forces, resulting in 47 deaths and more than 1,000 injuries. Maliki had sought to close the camp at the end of 2011, but bowed to international pressure and allowed it to stay open until the end of April.

At issue is the fate of the dissidents; whose return to Iran would be tantamount to a death sentence. The MEK, other Iranian dissident groups and human rights organizations argue that those living in Camp Ashraf should be safely relocated to other nations by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. And while the Camp residents have already been granted “protected persons” status under the 4th Geneva Convention, Iraq has practically blocked the resettlement efforts by not allowing the UNHCR to start its process even though the UN body declared its readiness to do so in September.

The residents’ supporters are also wary of the Iraqi government’s desire to move them to Camp Liberty, a former U.S. military base near Baghdad International Airport, citing the lack of access to the camp by family members and lawyers, the lack of freedom of movement, the absence of UN inspectors inside the camp, the belief that those housed there would be denied adequate medical care, and the fear that they would be mistreated or brutalized by Iraqi forces.

“The way Camp Liberty has been pre-designed and controlled by the Iraqi regime, clearly at the behest of the Iranian regime, it is now a prison camp, not a refugee camp,” Freeh said.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bi-partisan-members-of-congress-prominent-former-officials-call-for-peaceful-resettlement-of-camp-ashraf-residents-removal-of-the-dissidents-from-terrorist-list—-californian-society-for-democracy-in-iran-138898629.html

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EU, US must accept Camp Ashraf inmates: Iranian dissident

February 7, 2012 by

AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

BRUSSELS — The EU and United States must take in ailing and wounded inmates from a camp in Iraq housing thousands of Iranian dissidents, the leader of an Iranian opposition group said Tuesday.

“I urge the European Union and the United States to immediately accept a certain number of sick and wounded residents” from Camp Ashraf,” Maryam Rajavi, who heads the National Council of Resistance of Iran, said on the sidelines of a meeting at the European parliament in Brussels.

“Any delay in this regard is unacceptable and unjustifiable,” she told AFP.

There are some 3,400 Iranians living in Ashraf, home for the past 30 years to Iranian dissidents, who are now facing expulsion as Baghdad wants to close down the camp.

The camp was set up when Iraq and Iran were at war in the 1980s by the then Iranian People’s Mujahedeen, which joined forces with the Iraqis to fight the Tehran government.

The camp came under US control until January 2009, when US forces transferred security for the camp to Iraq.

The camp’s residents are being assessed individually by the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees after applying for refugee status, to allow them to resettle elsewhere, but fears are that the process cannot be completed within the time-frame set by Baghdad.

Under a pact signed on December 25 between the United Nations and the Iraqi government, the residents of camp Ashraf will be transferred to Camp Liberty, another site near Baghdad.

The People’s Mujahedeen has said it will only accept a move to Camp Liberty if this did not involve prison-like conditions.

“The EU, the US and the UN must intervene actively and immediately to prevent Camp Liberty from being transformed into a prison,” said Rajavi, adding that residents there must be free to come and go freely.

Her organisation says there is no potable water in the camp and that residents are not allowed to leave freely or have access to lawyers and doctors.

Daniel Fried, the US diplomat in charge of the Camp Ashraf issue, called on the People’s Mujahedeen to move to the new temporary home in accordance with the December 25 agreement.

Fried said that the United States was informed that an Iraqi representative held “businesslike and productive” discussions with the People’s Mujahedeen on Monday about the move.

“The United States welcomes this progress and we look forward to the first residents moving from Camp Ashraf to Camp Hurriya (Liberty) in the immediate future,” Fried told reporters on a conference call from Washington.

“The residents of Camp Ashraf must make the decision to start this relocation process. Camp Ashraf is no longer a viable home for them. They have no secure future there,” he said.

“The government of Iraq has committed itself to the security of the people at Camp Hurriya and is aware that the United States expects it to fulfill its responsibility,” he said.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hMW_oWblVkbYYcvCYd360MHXdFSQ

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Statement of European-American Conference in the European Parliament

February 7, 2012 by

Statement of European-American Conference in the European Parliament 

February 7, 2012 

A European-American Conference was convened on invitation of the Friends of Free Iran intergroup in the European Parliament on February 7, in relation to the current political situation in Iran and the region, and the necessity of protecting Ashraf residents, members of the Iranian opposition. The conference was presided over by Jim Higgins, member of the European Parliament’s Bureau. Dozens of EU parliamentarians, including Alejo Vidal-Quadras, Vice-President of the European Parliament, Struan Stevenson, head of the Delegation for Relations with Iraq in the parliament, and many prestigious American personalities such as Howard Dean, former US Presidential candidate and Chairman of the Democratic National Convention, Senator Robert Torricelli, former US Congressman Patrick Kennedy and John Bruton Former Prime Minister of Ireland spoke at the event. The Iranian Resistance’s President-elect, Mrs Maryam Rajavi, was the keynote speaker of the event. Participants underlined the following points: 

1. As the uprising in Syria has placed that country’s dictator on the verge of collapse and the tide in the region is rapidly turning against the Iranian regime and its puppet government in Iraq, the Iranian regime’s leader, Khamenei, declared war on the international community on Friday, February 3, in Tehran’s Friday prayer meeting and announced that his regime, in disregard of all international sanctions, will continue its nuclear weapons program and meddling in the region, and will push to establish Islamist regimes in the region. He once again called for the destruction of Israel and claimed that the United States is on the verge of collapse. 

2. Such posturing is not from a position of power but reflects the depth of the Iranian regime’s crisis and weakness that prevents it from showing any flexibility. Any compromise by this regime is tantamount to its accelerated downfall and implosion. Khamenei threatened his internal rivals to submit to the will of his Guardians Council as Iranian society seethes with dissent and economic crises engulf the regime. His aim is to forestall yet another round of internal uprisings on the eve of the regime’s sham parliamentary elections. The Guardians Council is comprised of members appointed directly or indirectly by Khamenei himself. 

3. The Iranian regime is bent on the destruction of Ashraf residents, members of the main Iranian opposition, before the tide of change reaches Iraq and Iran from Syria, so that it can face that challenge easier. The regime knows very well that the Iranian Resistance movement is the main force that can lead and transform the enormous dissent inside Iranian society towards a fundamental change to democracy. 

4. The experience of the uprisings of 2009 and 2011 showed that former members of this regime that are now presenting themselves as the Green movement have never had the political capacity or the moral courage to lead the people’s uprising and in effect provide service to the Khamenei regime to dampen and stifle dissent by sowing seeds of despair among the people. They seek to maintain the current regime structure and constitution without the slightest price and to implant themselves within the institutions of power.

5. The conference  agreed that the international community, especially the EU and US, should recognize the Iranian Resistance and its President-elect as the legitimate opposition and democratic alternative to the Iranian regime and protect Ashraf residents. This is not only a political and moral obligation but a necessity to achieve world peace. Mrs Rajavi rightfully pointed out that although the sanctions are very necessary, but the lasting solution to rid the world of religious fascism that seeks nuclear weapons is regime change and the establishment of a secular democracy with a non-nuclear stance. This change can only be achieved at the hands of the Iranian people and resistance. 

6. The conference condemned any pressures applied to Ashraf residents to force them to transfer to Camp Liberty and stressed that the prerequisite of any transfer of Ashraf residents to Liberty was providing the minimum assurances to the residents – assurances that are legitimate and reasonable and without which Liberty would be nothing more than a prison. The freedom to transfer moveable property and vehicles to Liberty, the lack of a police presence inside of the small Camp Liberty area, freedom of movement, provision of minimum living area, are the minimums that if the Iraqi  government is not ready to provide, will show a sinister intention and would therefore preclude any transfer by the residents. 

7. The conference expressed great appreciation for Mrs Rajavi’s courageous and goodwill initiative to transfer 400 residents with their moveable property and vehicles to Liberty in order to prepare the way for the transfer of the rest of the residents. The conference expressed hope that the Iraqi government accepts this generous initiative and reciprocates with goodwill. Without providing these conditions, the transfer of the rest of the residents will not be possible. 

8- The conference stressed considering all limitation and dangers that exist in Liberty, it strongly supports a solution that following transfer of the first 400 residents to Liberty, the second group would be transferred only when the first group has left Liberty to third countries. In other words, in Liberty, there will never be more that 400 people. 

9- The conference, recognizing the efforts of the Special Representative of the United Nation Secretary General, Ambassador Martin Kobler, regarding Camp Ashraf, stresses that he should consider the fact that Ashraf residents, the leadership of the camp and Mrs. Rajavi have shown maximum flexibility and cooperation and have relinquished many given rights in doing so.  It is now time that Mr Kobler took an impartial position and bravely defended the minimum rights of Ashraf residents disregarding reactions of the government of Iraq and Iranian regime.  He has the international community on his side and undoubtedly can achieve the minimums if he puts aside political considerations.

The conference regretted the fact that the Memorandum of Understanding was signed on 25 December without the agreement or awareness of the residents, and that Camp Liberty was announced to be ready in a statement released on 31 January, again without the knowledge of residents while the camp does not meet international human rights and humanitarian standards. In this regard the conference, in order to clarify any misunderstanding, called for an “Executive Document of the Arrangements of Transfer” to be signed by the Special Representative, the representatives of residents, and government of Iraq to prevent Iraq from violating oral commitments as it has done in the past. 

10- The conference applauded the stance of the UN Commissioner for Refugees and called on the UNHCR to start the reaffirmation of refugee status of Ashraf residents objecting imposed limitation by the government of Iraq.  For over 5 months this process, which is necessary to resettle Ashraf residents, has been stalled. 

11- The conference welcomed and appreciated valuable considerations by the Un Secretary General about Ashraf and asked him and the UN Security Council to condemn limitations imposed against UNAMI and the UNHCR by the government of Iraq and help the Special Representative to take powerful and effective steps toward a peaceful solution for the issue of Ashraf, disregarding pressures of the government of Iraq and the Iranian regime. 

12- The conference also called on the European Union High Representative Catherine Ashton, Secretary Clinton and the government of United States to take a more active role in this regard, support the United Nations and Ambassador Kobler, provide necessary sources to the UNHCR, and start the process of accepting Ashraf residents specially the ill and wounded in a swift manner.  The U.S. government was specifically called on to remove the illegal and illegitimate terrorist tag against the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization, MEK, in order to remove the main obstacle on the way of resettlement of residents in third countries and eliminate al-Maliki’s main excuse for suppressing them.  With the economic and political leverage available, the international community and specifically the United States should not allow the government of al-Maliki, which has come to power and maintains it with the aid of the United States, to massacre the defenceless residents of Ashraf that the United States accepted the responsibility of their protection legally and officially in 2003. 

Friends of a free Iran

European Parliament

Brussels 

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EU Parliament hosts conf. on situation in Iran

February 7, 2012 by

KUWAIT NEWS AGENCY
 
BRUSSELS, Feb 7 (KUNA) — A European-American Conference was convened at invitation of the Friends of Free Iran intergroup in the European Parliament in Brussels on Tuesday on the current political situation in Iran and the region, and the Ashraf camp in Iraq, The conference was presided over by Jim Higgins, member of the European Parliament’s Bureau.

According to a statement released by the organisers, dozens of EU parliamentarians, including Alejo Vidal-Quadras, Vice-President of the European Parliament, Struan Stevenson, head of the Delegation for Relations with Iraq in the EP, and many prestigious American personalities such as Howard Dean, former US Presidential candidate and Chairman of the Democratic National Convention, Senator Robert Torricelli, former US Congressman Patrick Kennedy and John Bruton Former Prime Minister of Ireland spoke at the event.

The Paris-based leader of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, Maryam Rajavi, was the keynote speaker of the event. Friends of a Free Iran intergroup was formed in 2004 and consists of over 100 MEPs from various political groups.

http://www.kuna.net.kw/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=2220071&language=en

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‘Voluntary’ Imprisonment at Camp Liberty?

February 6, 2012 by

THE HUFFINGTON POST

Once again the plight of Camp Ashraf attracts international attention. The issue: a statement published by the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), headed by Ambassador Martin Kobler, calling on residents to move to Camp Liberty.

According to the statement, Camp Liberty – an abandoned US base near Baghdad airport – is now in compliance with “international humanitarian standards” for housing “5.500 people”. Human rights experts however point to serious shortcomings.

Following last year’s brutal massacre of dozens of defenceless refugees at Ashraf by the Iraqi army, which brought swift international condemnations, Iraq quickly announced a deadline to shut down Camp Ashraf by 31 December 2011. The residents had no option but to leave the country, Iraq said.

Since last September, UN’s refugee body (UNHCR) has been ready to start the Refugee Status Determination process of the over 3000 “asylum-seekers” at Camp Ashraf. The process, however, never started as Iraq barred UNHCR from doing interviews inside or even nearby Ashraf.

It further emerged that Iraq had no intention of speeding up departures from Ashraf to third countries. Instead, it was implementing Tehran’s instructions for setting impossible conditions to obtain another excuse to launch attacks on Ashraf when the deadline would expire. Ashraf houses members of the most devoted and long-lasting opposition to the mullahs’ rule, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK).

UN Secretary General’s Special Representative, Martin Kobler, was tasked to find a “peaceful solution” to the drama. He proposed Camp Liberty as a temporary relocation for Ashraf residents so that the UNHCR would start the interviews. Iraq extended the deadline to April 2012 on condition that people would move to Liberty promptly. A group of 400 residents declared themselves ready to move to Liberty with their movable property to test Iraq’s intentions.

But it became increasingly clear that no sincere intention to facilitate the refugee process existed from the Iraqi side. The real plan seems to be initiated from Tehran to create a detention centre to further distress and hopefully breakdown the persistent Iranian dissidents.

In a statement on 25 January, the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe called ‘Don’t turn Camp Liberty into a prison for Ashraf residents’.

The initial 40 square km area of Camp Liberty had been reduced to only half a square km. The area is being encircled by 3.6 meter high concrete walls. The residents or their legal representation are not allowed to visit the camp in advance.

Furthermore, vehicles or other movable property beyond travel bags are not allowed to be taken in. There’s no access to lawyers or medical services. No face-to-face or 24-hour access to UN observers as it had been suggested before. Armed security forces will have permanent presence inside the camp. All entrees and exits are controlled by the army. Freedom of movement is nonexistent.

“Any relocation outside Camp (Ashraf) proceed on a voluntary basis, with freedom of movement the most desirable state at the site of relocation,” the UNHCR said in a statement on 1 February highlighting the shortcoming of UNAMI’s statement.

“It’s not a transit camp; it’s not a refugee settlement; it’s a detention centre, a prison!” Guy Goodwin-Gill, Professor of International Refugee Law at Oxford University stressed during a conference in Westminster 31 January. “Such conditions are poor, nothing short of inhumane and should not be endorsed by Ambassador Kobler,” he declared in a separate statement.

But during a press conference in Brussels on 2 February, Kobler again reiterated his proposal. “It requires a voluntary decision by Camp Ashraf residents to relocate from Camp Ashraf to Liberty.”

“There are two options for camp Ashraf residents: To stay in Ashraf…but this is an option which might lead to violence!..Or to use the offer of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to go to Camp Liberty,” he concluded.

In other words: Die in Ashraf or move voluntarily to a prison!

“Kobler is acting like a salesman trying to sell an imperfect package with no guarantees,” a source close to the negotiations said.

While it is a well-known principle that UN officials do not sit down and discuss the condition of an asylum-seeker with a government that he or she has escaped from, Mr Kobler has made no secret of his good contacts with the Iranian Ambassador over Ashraf.

“I am in close contacts with Iranian authorities,” Kobler was quoted by the German paper Frankfurter Allgemeine on 4 February. “I am confident that many (residents) will go back to Iran,” he claimed.

“Who gave him authority to speak for our loved ones?” Saeed Fathi, exiled-Iranian lawyer who has relatives in Ashraf said. “This is an insult to their dignity!”

Mr Kobler got explicit backing from UN, EU and US to solve the Ashraf crises. His failure to use that power to convince Iraq to uphold basic human rights standards at Camp Liberty is therefore seen as very unfortunate.

“Yet another ‘Done Deal’ just as he did with the MoU and the UNAMI statement,” Fathi deplored. “Issuing press releases decorated with words such as ‘humanitarian standards’ to cover up the human rights shortcoming is simply immoral.”

Abbas Rezai is a Human Rights and Foreign Policy Writer

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/abbas-rezai/voluntary-imprisonment-at_b_1256279.html

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USCCAR Deplores Reckless Decisions by UNAMI’s Chief on Camp Ashraf

February 2, 2012 by

WASHINGTON, Feb. 2, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The US Committee for Camp Ashraf Residents (USCCAR), representing thousands of Iran-Americans whose loved-ones reside in Camp Ashraf, Iraq, condemns the reckless and potentially harmful assertions made in the January 31 statement issued by Ambassador Martin Kobler, head of United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) and UN Secretary General’s Special Representative for Iraq.

USCCAR warns that Mr. Kobler should not become a part and parcel of a despicable joint Iranian-Iraqi “working plan” aimed at dismantling Iran’s principal organized opposition, the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK) whose 3,400 members and their families currently reside in Ashraf.

Mr. Kobler must be reminded that last September, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) formally recognized the residents of Ashraf as “asylum seekers,” a status which, according to UNHCR, entitles them to certain rights and protections based on international humanitarian standards. In its February 1, 2012 statement, UNHCR once again described all residents of Ashraf as “persons of concern.”

While Ambassador Kobler has made a great deal about the number of toilets and faucets at Camp Liberty, he has failed to mention that humanitarian standards at the Camp – including the right to freedom of movement and access to lawyers and medical services – are effectively non-existent.

In addition, the Camp Liberty is encircled with thick 12-feet high concrete walls and surrounded by the Iraqi military forces. The residents will not have in-person round-the-clock access to UN observers, who will be stationed outside the Camp perimeter while Iraqi police will be inside. The residents are not even permitted to take their vehicles and moveable belongings.

In its February 1st statement, UNHCR attached “utmost importance to peaceful solutions being found.” The UN Refugee Agency further emphasized that any relocation outside Camp Ashraf must proceed on a voluntary basis, “with freedom of movement the most desirable state at the site of relocation.” UNHCR did not certify Camp Liberty in its statement but said it only “has been advising on the technicalities of improving the camp infrastructure.”

Mr. Kobler’s impartiality is a must when dealing with the lives of 3,400 defenseless asylum seekers. However, his actions have made a fait accompli situation designed to force the residents of Ashraf into “voluntarily” accepting the relocation terms crafted by Tehran and set forward by the Iraqi government. 

SOURCE: US Committee for Camp Ashraf Residents (USCCAR)

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/usccar-deplores-reckless-decisions-by-unamis-chief-on-camp-ashraf-138578039.html

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Iranian Dissidents Must Not Be Sent To A Concentration Camp

January 30, 2012 by

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 21st 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

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