Agence France Presse

(BRUSSELS) – Iraqi forces are preparing to attack the Ashraf Camp in Iraq housing thousands of outlawed Iranian dissidents, the leader of an Iranian opposition group, Maryam Rajavi, told AFP on Wednesday.

Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran

The attack is “imminent”, said Rajavi, who heads the National Council of Resistance of Iran. She warned of a potential “bloodbath” and added she was acting on information received “from within” Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards.

She said that according to the information, Iraqi forces had finished training for an assault on the camp, home for the past 30 years to 3,400 Iranian dissidents, now facing expulsion by year’s end.

She called on the United Nations to send observers to the camp.

The camp, which has become a mounting international problem, has been in the spotlight since an April raid by Iraqi security left 34 dead and scores injured, triggering sharp condemnation. Iraq wants its closure by December 31.

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

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.

At a gathering of hundreds of exiles in Brussels on Tuesday, Rajavi urged quick international action “to cancel the suppressive deadline set by the Iraqi government.”

“The US remains morally responsible for the people of Ashraf,” said former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean at the Tuesday protest.

“We have 74 days left until the deadline,” he added. “We have 74 days left until all the American troops are withdrawn and there is no protection left.”

http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/iraq-iran-us.czh

PRNewswire

Urging America to get on the “Right Side of History”, Groups Ask Obama to Unshackle Main Democratic Opposition Against the Regime

Iran Freedom March across the White House, October 22, 2011, 11 AM. Click on the image for the high resolution PDF version.

“This brazen plot to murder the Saudi diplomat and plant bombs in public places in the nation’s capital show the extent to which Iran has undertaken a clandestine war on America’s streets,” said Nasser Sharif, of the Californian Society for a Democratic Iran. “It is clear that no amount of political concessions or economic incentives will seduce the regime into moderating its behavior. The mullahs are getting a message of weakness from the West. It’s time for the U.S. to lead in undermining and removing this hostile regime by untying the hands of the main Iranian opposition.”

Indeed, a range of concessions combined with ineffectual punitive measures such as economic sanctions applied by the west against regime have been met with increased domestic crackdowns in Iran, terrorist meddling in Iraq, the U.S. and elsewhere, and an unabated dash toward nuclear weapons.

“The current policy of ‘engagement’ rests on naïve hope rather than hard experience. The U.S. must expand its range of options in dealing with this irredeemable regime, which now include only ineffectual sanctions to unrealistic military strikes. The litmus test of this policy change is the unshackling of the principal Iranian opposition movement, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), which was a concession made by the U.S. to the regime 14 long and unproductive years ago.”

The MeK was put on America’s list of “Foreign Terrorist Organizations” (FTO) in 1997. The highest courts in the United Kingdom, the European Union and France have struck down the terrorist designation of the MEK as perverse, resulting in the group’s delisting in the UK and the EU in 2008 and 2009 respectively. The Federal Court of Appeals in Washington, DC, rendered a judgment in July 2010, telling the State Department that it had erred in maintaining MEK’s designation. Some 450 days after the court remanded the case to the Secretary, the Department is yet to make a decision, flouting the rule of law in the process.

“The MeK is a key player to topple the regime and ensure a democratic, non-nuclear future in Iran.  The FTO designation has acted as a license to kill members and sympathizers of the MEK in Iran and Iraq. Several have been hanged by the Iranian regime; the government of Nuri al-Maliki has attacked its members in Camp Ashraf in Iraq twice, killing 47 and wounding more than 1,000 residents,” added Mr. Sharif,

The communities, which represent thousands of Iranians from Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin, will hold a major rally outside the White House on Saturday, October 22, to urge the administration to abandon the policy of engagement and embrace regime change by Iranians in dealing with the theocracy ruling Iran.

Media Contact: Nasser Sharif California Society for Democracy in Iran, 562 221 8000, california.csdi@yahoo.com

News distributed by PR Newswire iReach: https://ireach.prnewswire.com

 SOURCE California Society for Democracy in Iran

AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

BRUSSELS — Iranian dissidents, backed by Belgian, European and US politicians, Tuesday urged the international community to press Iraq to postpone the closure of a camp housing thousands of outlawed Iranians.

“The US remains morally responsible for the people of Ashraf,” said former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, referring to Camp Ashraf, home for the past 30 years to 3,400 Iranian dissidents, now facing expulsion by year’s end.

“We have 74 days left until the deadline,” he told a gathering of hundreds in Brussels. “We have 74 days left until all the American troops are withdrawn and there is no protection left.”

The camp, which has become a mounting international problem, has been in the spotlight since an April raid by Iraqi security left 34 dead and scores injured, triggering sharp condemnation. Iraq wants its closure by December 31.

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

The camp’s residents are being assessed individually by 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.

Maryam Rajavi, who heads the National Council of Resistance of Iran, urged quick international action “to cancel the suppressive deadline set by the Iraqi government”.

Last month, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton appointed an advisor to help resolve the issue and the head of a European parliament group on Iraq, MEP Struan Stevenson, said “Ambassador De Ruyt should visit Ashraf as soon as possible”.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iCyMRHQf6W8oirE-6I9IKzx5tkag

PRNewswire

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 SOURCE US Committee for Camp Ashraf Residents (USCCAR)

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

REUTERS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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