Working to Ensure Safety and Security of Our Loved Ones in Camp Ashraf

Iraq plan to move Iranians at camp criticized

The Washington Post
Letter to the Editor

Sunday, December 27, 2009
The Dec. 16 news story "Iranian exiles told to leave Iraq camp" underscored the rising fears of bloodshed in Camp Ashraf after Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's decision to banish 3,400 unarmed Iranian dissidents there to a notorious desert prison camp in southern Iraq. Amnesty International fears that the move would put camp residents -- members of Iran's main opposition group, the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK) -- "at risk of arbitrary arrest, torture or other forms of ill-treatment, and unlawful killing."

Many international humanitarian law experts, including the International Committee of Jurists in Defense of Ashraf, maintain that Ashraf residents are "protected persons" under the Fourth Geneva Convention and cannot be forcibly relocated; they insist Article 45 of the convention makes the United States responsible for their safety. Ashraf's residents respect Iraq's sovereignty but will not submit to an illegal action at Tehran's demand.

A secondary headline on the story said that the MEK has "few friends." More than 2,000 European parliamentarians back the group, and the European Parliament passed a resolution underscoring the rights of Ashraf residents. Europe's judiciary has annulled the "perverse" designation of the MEK's members as "terrorists" by the European Commission. In the United States, a bipartisan group of 136 members of Congress has co-sponsored a resolution calling on the Obama administration to meet its obligations to protect Ashraf residents. In Iraq, 5.2 million primarily Iraqi Sunnis and 3 million Shiite have signed public declarations endorsing the MEK.

And, as The Post reported in a June 20 news story, "more than 80,000" MEK supporters gathered in Paris in solidarity with pro-democracy uprisings in Iran.

Clearly, our loved ones in Ashraf are not short on friends, and for good reason: They belong to a movement that seeks democratic change in Iran... Read More

Amnesty blasts Iraq over treatment of Iran exiles
Associated Press, December 11, 2009
BAGHDAD — Amnesty International on Friday warned that Iraq's plans to move an Iranian opposition group to a former desert detention camp in the country's remote south would put them at risk of arbitrary arrest and torture...

Amnesty International said it feared the "forced removals of the residents of Camp Ashraf would put them at risk of arbitrary arrest, torture or other forms of ill-treatment and unlawful killing." The Iraqi plan calls for moving the exiles to a remote outpost in Neqrat al-Salman, about 200 miles (120 kilometers) west of the southern city of Basra. It was used for decades as a detention center where Saddam banished political opponents.

"Whatever measures the Iraqi authorities decide to take with regard to the future of Camp Ashraf, the rights of all its residents must be protected and guaranteed at all times," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, a deputy director with Amnesty International...

"The expectation is not that they're going to expel the ... Camp Ashraf residents, but that they would try to move them — forcibly move them to a different location in Iraq, and that, too, could lead to bloodshed," Jeffrey Feltman, the assistant secretary of state for Middle Eastern affairs, told a Foreign Affairs subcommittee in the House of Representatives on Oct. 28... Full Story

Iraq should humanely relocate Iranian opposition: US

Agence France Presse, December 11, 2009
WASHINGTON — The United States said Friday it expects the Baghdad government to act legally and humanely when it relocates Iranian dissidents from a border camp to southern Iraq before deporting them.

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Washington is holding Iraq to previous assurances that the People's Mujahedeen will be treated humanely and do not end up in a country where they could be harmed.

The People's Mujahedeen of Iran (PMOI), a group otherwise known as the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, was founded in 1965 in opposition to the Shah of Iran and subsequently fought the clerical regime that toppled him in the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki announced plans Thursday to move the more than 3,000 members of the group living at Camp Ashraf near the Iranian border to Neqrat al-Salman, a camp in the desert south of Baghdad. Supporters of the group say the move will occur Tuesday... Full Story
 

Iranian opposition group supporters in Iraq must not be forcibly evicted
Amnesty International, December 11, 2009
The Iraqi authorities must not forcibly relocate about 3,400 members of an Iranian opposition group from a settlement north of Baghdad where they have lived since the mid-1980's, Amnesty International said on Friday.

Sources have told Amnesty International that residents of Camp Ashraf, which is 60km north of Baghdad, have been given a deadline of 15 December 2009 to leave or they will be forcibly removed and relocated elsewhere in Iraq. Some may also be at risk of being forcibly returned to Iran.

Camp Ashraf is home to over 3,000 members and supporters of the Iranian opposition group, the People's Mojaheddin Organization of Iran (PMOI). The group has been living there for more than 20 years and it is now a small town with shops, medical and other facilities.

"Whatever measures the Iraqi authorities decide to take with regard to the future of Camp Ashraf, the rights of all its residents must be protected and guaranteed at all times," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Director of the Middle East and North Africa programme at Amnesty International.... Full Story
 

Iraq seeks to shift Iranian group to desert camp
Associated Press, December 10, 2009
BAGHDAD — Iraq announced plans Thursday to move members of an Iranian opposition group to a former desert detention camp in a sharp escalation of pressure on a faction that poses complications for both Baghdad and Washington.

The group, the People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, strongly denounced the plans as "unlawful and disgraceful" and said they were part of efforts to force its members to leave Iraq.

About 3,500 members of the group — which was hosted in Iraq for years by Saddam Hussein — have been under watch at a camp in northeastern Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. But Iraqi authorities have increasingly taken a hard line toward Camp Ashraf, including a raid by security forces in July that touched off a melee in which 11 people were reportedly killed... Full Story
 

Iraq to transfer Iranian dissident group
Agence France Presse, December 10, 2009
BAGHDAD — Baghdad is to move disarmed Iranian rebels from a camp close to the border to southern Iraq before deporting them, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said in remarks released on Thursday.

"We have taken the decision to get them (the People's Mujahedeen) out of Iraq ... and the process of their moving to Neqrat al-Salman is a step on the way of taking them out of the country," he said on the website of the National Media Centre, a government agency...

Earlier on Thursday, a government spokesman said the dissidents would first be moved to buildings in Baghdad on Tuesday...  Neqrat al-Salman, the camp to which the Iranians are to be transferred, 350 kilometres (220 miles) south of Baghdad in the desert, is where now-executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein used to send opponents of his regime... Full Story
 

Iraq to move Iranian exiles to remote south -PM
Reuters, Dec 09, 2009
BAGHDAD, Dec 9 (Reuters) - Iraq plans to uproot an Iranian exile group that has become a headache for the Baghdad government and move the activists to a remote southern area until it can expel them, the prime minister said this week.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki vowed to oust members of the People's Mujahideen Organisation of Iran (PMOI), an Iranian opposition movement that the United States considers a terrorist organisation, from a camp northeast of Baghdad where they have been living for two decades.

Their clamour for greater rights within Iraq and aggressive international outreach has been an irritant for a government seeking to nurture its fragile relationship with Tehran. Maliki did not say when officials would try to move the exiles from Camp Ashraf to the southern province of Muthanna... Full Story
 

Iranian group: health care blocked at Iraq camp
Associated Press, December 4, 2009
BAGHDAD — Members of an Iranian opposition group claimed Friday that Iraqi authorities are limiting their access to outside health care at a camp in northern Iraq where they have been under watch since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

The charges are the latest complaints about conditions at Camp Ashraf, which was raided by Iraqi security forces in July in a melee that reportedly left 11 people dead and dozens injured.

Iraqi officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment on the accusations by the Iranian group, the People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, which used Iraq as a base for years under Saddam. But one Iraqi lawmaker, Ahmed Al-Alwan, said it appeared that authorities were "tightening controls" on the camp...

A doctor in the camp, Jawad Ahmadi, told The Associated Press that Iraqi forces are cutting off supplies of medicine and access to outside medical specialists. Ahmadi said there are a total of 10 physicians in the camp, but they lack supplies and the expertise to deal with patients being treated for problems such as bladder cancer and reconstructive surgery for a shattered pelvis. "These people are suffering," he said. "We can do little more for them with what we have."... Full Story
 

Spain might probe Iranian killings in Iraq
Associated Press, December 2, 2009
MADRID (AP) — A Spanish judge has asked Iraq if it is investigating a melee in which Iraqi security forces are accused of killing 11 members of an Iranian exile group — a first step toward a possible probe by the judge himself.

Judge Fernando Andreu is acting under Spain's universal justice doctrine, which allows grave crimes alleged to have been committed in other countries to be prosecuted here, so long as certain conditions are met. Andreu made the request in an order released this week and obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press.

One such condition is that the country where a crime allegedly took place not be holding — or already have carried out — an investigation of its own. And although there is no link to Spain in this case — such a tie is a new condition set in a recent reform of the universal justice law — Spanish judges can still act if the crime violates an international treaty signed by Spain. Andreu says a Geneva Convention does apply, addressing the protection of civilians in war times...

Andrew is acting on a complaint filed by human rights lawyers in Spain representing members of the Iranian exile group, the People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran. There is no deadline for the Iraqi government to respond to Andreu's query... Full Story

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