March 28, 2024

Ban calls for start of relocation of Iranian exiles living in camp in Iraq

UN News Centre

15 February 2012 – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today called for the start of the relocation of residents of the settlement in Iraq formerly known as Camp Ashraf, urging the Government and the camp dwellers to continue to cooperate so that the process can be carried out in a peaceful manner.

“The Secretary-General reiterates that the Government of Iraq bears the primary responsibility for the security and the welfare of the residents of Camp Ashraf,” said a statement issued by his spokesperson.

“At the same time, the residents of Camp Ashraf also bear a responsibility to abide by the laws of Iraq. Any provocation or violence must be avoided and would be unacceptable.”

The United Nations and the Iraqi Government on 25 December signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the voluntary relocation of several thousand Iranian exiles living in Camp New Iraq, previously known as Camp Ashraf, in the north-eastern part of the country.

On 31 January, the UN High Commissioner for Refugee (UNHCR) and the human rights office of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) said they had confirmed that the infrastructure and facilities at the new relocation camp met international standards.

In his statement today, Mr. Ban acknowledged the efforts of the Iraqi Government to prepare the temporary transit location to host the residents and allow UNHCR to undertake refugee status determination.

He reiterated his call to Member States to contribute to a durable solution by demonstrating their readiness to accept eligible residents of Camp New Iraq who wish to resettle in third countries.

The Secretary-General stressed that the UN “remains strongly committed to continue to do its utmost to facilitate a peaceful and durable solution.”

Situated in the eastern Iraqi province of Diyala, Camp New Iraq camp houses several thousand members of a group known as the People’s Mojahedeen of Iran.

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=41253&Cr=iraq&Cr1=

UN Secretary General’s Statement on Camp Ashraf

New York, 15 February 2012 – Statement Attributable to the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General on Camp Ashraf

The Secretary-General continues to closely follow the situation in Camp Ashraf. Over the past few months, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), under the leadership of his Special Representative, Martin Kobler, and in close cooperation with UNHCR, the European Union, the United States and other interested Member States, has been tirelessly working as an impartial facilitator to promote a peaceful resolution of this issue, within the framework of UNAMI’s humanitarian mandate.

At the request of the Secretary-General, the Government of Iraq extended its deadline to close Camp Ashraf from 31 December 2011 to 30 April 2012. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed on 25 December 2011 between the United Nations and the Government of Iraq has laid the foundation for a peaceful and durable solution, respecting both the sovereignty of Iraq and meeting Iraq’s international humanitarian and human rights obligations.

The Secretary-General acknowledges the efforts of the Government of Iraq to prepare the temporary transit location to host the residents and allow UNHCR to undertake refugee status determination. On 31 January 2012, UNHCR confirmed that the infrastructure and facilities at the temporary transit location are in accordance with the international humanitarian standards stipulated in the MoU.

The Secretary-General believes that the time has come to start the relocation process without further delay. He urges the Iraqi authorities and the residents of Camp Ashraf to continue to cooperate and complete the process in a peaceful manner. The Secretary-General reiterates that the Government of Iraq bears the primary responsibility for the security and the welfare of the residents of Camp Ashraf. At the same time, the residents of Camp Ashraf also bear a responsibility to abide by the laws of Iraq. Any provocation or violence must be avoided and would be unacceptable.

The Secretary-General reiterates his call to Member States to contribute to a durable solution by demonstrating their readiness to accept eligible residents of Camp Ashraf who wish to resettle in third countries.

The Secretary-General stresses that the United Nations remains strongly committed to continue to do its utmost to facilitate a peaceful and durable solution.

http://www.un.org/sg/statements/index.asp?nid=5863

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

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

‘Voluntary’ Imprisonment at Camp Liberty?

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

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

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

“Wake Up State Department, Take the MEK off the FTO List Today”

General Hugh Shelton, Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1997-2001), Saturday, July 16, 2011, Washington, DC

Excerpts:

Thank you for a very warm welcome. It is truly great to be with you here in Washington today and to join such a distinguished group of colleagues.

I’d also like to offer greetings to the residents of Camp Ashraf that may be watching or may see this later on. You know, there have been some substantive changes that have occurred in the political landscape and in the challenges that the Ashraf residents face since I last spoke to you or this group in May of this year, but some things have not changed.

First is the United States’ guarantee of protection for the residents of Camp Ashraf.  It is a commitment that we, as a nation, made and that we must honor if we are to sustain our reputation as a great nation and one that can be trusted to honor its
commitments.

As we all know, the residents of Camp Ashraf are individuals that provided invaluable information to the United States during the War with Iraq and at its most critical moments.  They are individuals that have placed themselves at great — great risk, not only themselves, but their families as well, by voluntarily giving up their arms when they were asked to do so by the United States, when, at that time, they were guaranteed protection by us.

And as an organization, we must remember that they are ones that first alerted us to the — to the nuclear programs that had been proposed by the mullahs, and as such, the regime might have those weapons today had it not been for their assistance.

The second thing that has not changed is — is that the current regime in Iran is still the world’s largest exporter of terrorism and the greatest threat to peace and stability throughout that region.

The ruling Iranian regime is an oppressive regime, as we all know.  It’s one that mixes theocracy with autocracy and extreme expansionist ideology and one that continues to defy the international community.

It is a regime that is intent on denying their own citizens the freedoms that they desire and that they deserve.

The U.S. has encountered elements of this regime in every operation that we have conducted for the last 25 years.

And it is a regime that is not there to help another country fight for freedom; it is there to impose their will on that regime whenever they can and wherever they can.

We recently heard Secretary of Defense Panetta say or express concern regarding Iran’s interference with the Maliki Government in Iraq.  So I think that now we have, in terms of Admiral Mike Mullen and Secretary Leon Panetta, two individuals in the Pentagon that fully understand the threat that Iran poses to the region and to the United States’ interests.

Third is the oppression of the — and the inequality of women by the current regime, and Iran has not changed.  It is deplorable.  We know that women want equality, they want respect and the right to participate in all social and economic events, and they deserve to live their lives in a productive manner, one in which they can live with dignity, one, unfortunately, which is not their lot in Iran today.

The current regime’s theocratic manner of declaring women as intellectually and physically inferior to men is counter to women’s rights, and it’s counter to their expectations, as well as — as what is the right thing to do by that regime and what — something that the regime understands but fails to do it.

Unfortunately, another thing that has not changed is that the largest, best-organized resistance to Iran’s current regime, the PMOI or the MEK, is still on the foreign terrorist list here in the United States.

Our great ally, the UK, took them off their list in 2008, followed very quickly in 2009 by the EU.  In the United States, we have former Ambassador Dell Dailey, another colleague who is — as — as the ambassador for counterterrorism to the State Department and as an individual who commanded our Joint Special Operations Command who knows more about terrorism and the – and the various organizations in this country than anyone in the State Department today, also previously recommended that the MEK come off the FTO list.

Our Congress has passed a resolution encouraging the State Department to take them off, and we’ve also seen in this — in this process that the State Department, in spite of being told to provide it, has failed to provide any either classified or declassified information that states why the MEK should have been placed on the list in the first place.

They also, as we know, last week, exceeded the 180 days that they had been given by the Court to produce evidence to substantiate their reasons why the MEK is on the list.

I say:  Wake up State Department, take the MEK off the FTO list today.

Now, what has changed since we saw that deplorable attack on — of Maliki’s control Iraqi troops in April?  Well, first, the — the fate of Ashraf residents has become very tenuous.  We, in the United States, have continued to fail to acknowledge our commitment to ensure the safety of the Ashraf residents hiding behind the lame excuse that it is now an Iraqi problem.

Ambassador Jeffrey in Iraq, his idea that Ashraf residents should be relocated somewhere else in Iraq without any assurance or even any apparent concern for their safety or providing rationale as to why this is a good idea, other than said it moves it further away from the Iran border, is appalling.  It causes me to stop and wonder what is this man drinking.

This idea is a recipe for disaster.  It is a recipe for slaughter.  It is a recipe for ethnic cleansing, far outside the reaches, now, of the international community.  By dispersing the residents of Ashraf, it is setting up a recipe for — or setting up a disaster.

The — the Iranian influence on the Maliki Government today has shown — has shown us that the Maliki Government is incapable of providing the degree of protection for the Ashraf residents that they should be providing.

It has shown that the Maliki Government has a disdain for the Ashraf residents, because we see inhumane treatment of the Ashraf residents on a daily basis, to include the loud speakers, the psychological warfare that they have been — that they have been carrying out, as well as the fact that they have continued to not allow the proper degree of medical treatment for the Ashraf residents.

And then, of course, we all watched the Maliki-controlled troops as they attacked or slaughtered and injured the unarmed residents of the Camp Ashraf.

We either need to send a new ambassador with moral courage who understands America’s prior commitments, or we need better oversight and guidance from Washington for that ambassador.

Equally appalling to me is the fact that when you look at the fact — that we have not used the tools of our national power to make sure that the Ashraf residents who are provided proper medical treatment is absolutely astonishing.

We should not forget that the MEK is the best organized, it is the most formidable opposition to the current Iranian regime.  It has challenged the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism for the past 32 years.  And to me, it is the MEK that provides hope for the current Iranian people that – it provides a degree of hope that far exceeds anything else that we, here in the United States, or our allies can offer short of direct intervention.

When you look at the 10-point program of human rights platform published by President-elect Mrs. Rajavi, which emphasizes the same religious and gender freedoms that are emphasized and advocated by the U.S. Department of State, to me, it makes it a no-brainer.

Just how dumb can Ambassador Jeffrey or anyone else be to ask an organization of this type to disband itself as he did just recently when, all over the world, we are supporting groups, groups who stand — stand against ruling dictators, dictators that are far less a threat to the United States than the Iranian regime and, in fact, dictators that were considered friends of the U.S. in some cases.

Why would we not want to put the weight and power of this country behind an organization that we know stands for the — the same principles that we stand for and that is the best-organized, best-led organization to take on the current Iranian regime?  It just doesn’t make sense.

As we look ahead, you say,okay, those are the problems, what do you recommend?  Well, my recommendation would be, first of all and first and foremost, take the MEK off the list.

Secondly,we need to remember that the — the Ashraf residents are part of the group that the United States recognized as protected citizens under the Fourth Geneva Convention, and that we, ourselves, provided protection for for six years.

Third, we need to pressure the Iraqis to stop all harassment and suppressive measures against the Ashraf residents today.Fourth, given that the Ashraf residents have accepted relocation as an option, we should let the Iraqis know in no uncertain terms, and by that, I mean, use maybe what I would characterize as “coercive diplomacy,” that forcible displacement inside Iraq is totally unacceptable.

We should use the tools of our national power, particularly our diplomatic and our economic tools, to ensure that the Iraqis live up to the commitments that we made to the Ashraf residents if we are not going to do it ourselves.

Fifth, we, in the United States, should step up to our responsibilities and guarantee temporary protection to the residents of Ashraf until they are resettled in third countries.

Let me summarize by saying we know that Iran is much — has much stronger and concentrated nationalism than any other country in the Middle East.  We know that many other countries in the Middle East look at Iran as a threat and for good reason.

We also know that the MEK provides the best avenue for change, and it’s why they — that Iran considers the MEK as a significant threat to their regime.

I would call on Secretary Clinton and Secretary Panetta to acknowledge the U.S. commitment, the promise that we made, the contract that we made with the Ashraf residents to provide for their protection.  Let’s quit hiding behind the lame excuse that that’s now an Iraqi problem as a reason — that — that gives us a reason to stand by and watch, and that’s not a reason at all.

Again, I say use the tools thatare available.  We’ve got a very strong economic tool, and we certainly have got diplomatic tools that we can use to adjust Maliki’s attitude and his actions towards the residents of Ashraf.

We, the United States, as I said before, are a great nation, but we are not in the eyes of the rest of the world if our word is not our bond and if we do not honor our commitments and our promises.

This is a disgrace for America in my opinion.  If President Maliki is so weak that he can’t control his armed forces or if he, in essence, is using his armed forces to attack, harass and, in the case of April, to slaughter the residents of Ashraf, then it’s a clear indication that he is nothing more than a puppet for the current Iranian regime.

Today, it is clear that the current regime in Iran needs to change, and the MEK, with their platform of human rights and equality, is the one that they fear.

We should join the UK and our European allies and remove the MEK from the FTO list, allowing them to continue to bring maximum pressure on the current regime.

This, combined with the strength and courage of those individuals living in Iran today who want their freedom, and especially the women and the youth of that country, offers the greatest opportunity for seeing Iran with a government that is sensitive to the needs of the people of Iran and the greatest opportunity for all the citizens of Iran to enjoy the basic human rights and freedoms that the rest of the free world enjoys.

Thank you very much.

West should back Iranians

United Press International
February 1, 2008
By BARONESS GOULD OF POTTERNEWTON

LONDON, Feb. 1 (UPI) — Iran under the mullahs is the only country in the world that continues to hang children, and it has an equally sinister track record over its treatment of women.
On Jan. 15, Amnesty International said in a report that nine women and two men in Iran are waiting to be stoned to death, adding that the “horrific practice” was “specifically designed to increase the suffering of the victims.”

“The majority of those sentenced to death by stoning are women. Women suffer disproportionately from such punishment. One reason is that they are not treated equally before the law and courts, in clear violation of international fair trial standards,” Amnesty International said.

Rahele Zamani, 27, was hanged in Evin Prison in Tehran in December. Her 3-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter are now orphans.

At least 113,454 women were detained by state security forces for being “improperly dressed” over the summer in the Iranian capital alone, according to Tehran police chief Ahmad-Reza Radan.

Maltreatment of women is indoctrinated in the regime’s ideology. The mullahs’ Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said last July, “We are witnessing in our country that some women activists and some men are trying to play with Islamic laws … in order to harmonize them with international conventions related to women. This is wrong. … They shouldn’t see the solution in changing Islamic jurisprudence laws.”

Earlier this month Ibrahim Lotfollahi, a 27-year-old student from Payam Nour University in the western Iranian city of Sanandaj, was tortured to death by agents of the regime’s notorious Ministry of Intelligence and Security. Local authorities tried to pass off the cold-blooded murder as suicide and they refused permission to Lotfollahi’s parents to exhume the corpse of their son who had been buried without their knowledge. The revelations regarding the true surroundings of Lotfollahi’s tragic death came from Iranian opposition activists.

The case serves as a stark reminder of what life can be like for those brave people in Iran who choose to speak their minds and take a stand against the theocratic dictatorship. But, in an unforgivable incongruity, the British government has thus far chosen to side with the mullahs instead of the millions of Iranians longing for change.

For years, our government has been appeasing the regime in exchange for lucrative trade deals in the vain hope of convincing the mullahs to abandon their terrorist tactics abroad. The climax came in 2001, when our Home Secretary Jack Straw accepted the regime’s demand that he ban its main democratic opposition movement, the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran.

Turning a blind eye to the execution of 120,000 PMOI sympathizers by the regime, our government went so far as to persuade the EU to ban the PMOI as well.

When in December 2006, the European Court of Justice annulled the EU’s ban on the PMOI, our government shamefully pressured the EU Council of Ministers to ignore the verdict of Europe’s highest court. But in November 2007, following an appeal by 35 parliamentarians from all aisles, the United Kingdom’s Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission ruled that the government’s ban on the PMOI was “flawed” and “perverse.” It ordered the new Home Secretary Jacqui Smith to immediately submit an Order to Parliament lifting the ban on the group.

Whereas one could not be blamed for thinking that justice had prevailed, the government has since announced that it would appeal the decision despite losing its application for grounds to appeal.

On Jan. 23, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe described POAC’s verdict on the PMOI case as a “slap in the face” for the government and called on the EU/U.K. to “implement immediately the decisions of competent European and national judicial institutions affecting the status of the listed persons or entities.”

It remains unclear what the government’s next step will be. Meanwhile in Tehran, the regime continues to torture and execute political prisoners. When challenged over its brutal practices, it simply responds that it is killing those who the EU/U.K. class as terrorists.

The people of Iran deserve freedom. While military action against Iran is out of the question, we in the United Kingdom should be assisting the Iranian people by exposing the mullahs’ barbaric practices and urging the U.N. Security Council to impose trade sanctions on the regime for its gross violations of human rights. But the first step in getting on the side of the Iranian people is for the government to lift the ban on the PMOI immediately.

(Baroness Gould of Potternewton is a Labor Peer. She has been a deputy speaker of the House of Lords since 2002.)

EU’s flawed combat against terrorism

Monday, 28 January 2008
Goesta Groenroos
OpEdNews.com

“Injustice is the best ally for terrorism,” reiterated Dick Marty, the Swiss senator in a press conference last week following the ratification of a resolution by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe condemning the methods used by the EU and the UN Security Council for blacklisting groups and individuals.

This resolution by Europe’s human rights watchdog, was based on a report pointing out that the use of terrorist lists by the EU and UN is arbitrary and violates fundamental rights, thus putting at risk the very the fabric of a democratic society, i.e. the rule of law

What is more tragic is that, under the cloak of combating terrorism, the terrorist list in some cases has been used a bargaining chip with rough dictatorships and terror masters. The treatment of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), the principal Iranian resistance movement, is very telling as it was singled out as one of the most egregious cases in the Council of Europe’s report. As Dick Marty put it, cases such as the PMOI controversy are an example of the “disastrous” effects of the blacklists.
The PMOI, a democratic anti-fundamentalist Islamic movement, has been the primary victim of the clerical regime’s suppression at home. Tens of thousands of its members and supporters have been executed by the religious tyrants ruling Iran over the years. Its members have been the primary target of the Iranian hit-squads all over Europe. The Iranian resistance movement was classified as a terrorist organization in the UK in March 2001 on the behest of the Iranian government, as Jack Straw, the former Foreign Secretary of Britain acknowledged in an 2006 interview: “”¦They (the Iranian government) were demanding and actually successfully of me when I was the Home secretary that we should ban a terrorist organization MEK (PMOI) that was working against Iran.”

As a subsequent of 9/11, the EU started to draw its terrorist list in 2001. In May 2002, as the EU terrorist list was updated, the PMOI, the pivotal member organization of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the coalition of Iranian opposition groups, was added to the list. Here too, the oppressors of the Iranian people turned to Her Majesty’s government to do their dirty work.

The PMOI successfully challenged its listing in EU’s Court of First Instance. In December 2006, in a landmark verdict, the Court of First Instance annulled the inclusion of the PMOI in the terrorist list. The EU Council chose not to appeal the verdict.

The ruling reiterated that during the listing process, the fundamental rights of the PMOI, including “the right to a fair hearing, the obligation to state reasons and the right to effective judicial protection” were infringed.

If that were not enough to get the Iranian resistance movement off the hook, 35 prominent members of both Houses of the British Parliament from all three major parties submitted an appeal to a special court, the Proscribed Organizations Appeals Commission (POAC), urging the removal of the PMOI from the UK terrorist list. This Commission was specifically set up by the British Government to review appeals by proscribed organizations.

Subsequent to 6 months of exhaustive review, including 5 days of open and 2 days of closed hearing, on November 30, 2007 the Court ruled against the British Government and the proscription. The Court ordered the Government to lay an order before Parliament removing the PMOI from the proscribed list.

In the unprecedented ruling, the Court described the Government’s failure to de-proscribe the PMOI as ‘perverse’ and ‘flawed’ while further adding that the decision ‘must be set aside’. The Court stated: “We recognize that a finding of perversity is uncommon. We believe, however, that this Commission is in the (perhaps unusual) position of having before it all of the material that is relevant to this decision.”The PMOI inclusion in the EU terrorist list was condemned by more than 8500 lawyers throughout Europe, as well as a majority of members of parliaments in the UK, Italy, Luxembourg, Belgium, Norway, and hundreds of members of the European Parliament.

One would have expected that the EU would pay heed to all these court rulings and growing chorus to remove the PMOI from the terrorist list. But this blatant violation of the rule of law by individuals whose duty it is to uphold them continues. What is equally serious, this great injustice imposed on the Iranian people and their Resistance in order to appease the fundamentalist dictatorship persists.

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the NCRI pointed out that by deciding to maintain the PMOI on its terrorist list, the EU Council is absolutely isolated and is defying two pillars of European democracy, namely Europe’s judicial and legislative institutions. Insisting on the same policy, the Council is not only in breach of the law, but also has defied the will of representatives of millions of Europeans who are represented in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. She called on the EU member states to remove the PMOI from the terrorist list and not allow such lawlessness and scandal, originally imposed on the Council by the British government, to continue.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” wrote Martin Luther King while sitting in a Birmingham Jail, in 1963.

So if EU wants to be taken seriously and be effective in the fight against terrorism, it should fight injustice and stop trampling on the rights of the Iranian Resistance that wants to wrest Iran from the clutches of their hideous, Islamic fundamentalism mongering oppressors.

Goesta Groenroos is Researcher in philosophy at Stockholm University and an expert on Iran

Placating tyranny

Thursday, 24 January 2008
By LORD CORBETT OF CASTLE VALE Chair, British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom

A judgment last year described the government’s ban on Iran’s PMOI as ‘unlawful’ – will Jack Straw ever admit to his part in it?

The Guardian, January 21, 2008 – Rarely has a verdict been so damning to the government as that issued on November 30 last year by the Proscribed Organisations Appeals Commission (POAC) over the case of the main democratic Iranian opposition, the PMOI.

Since 2001, at the behest of Iran’s theocratic leaders, the government had banned the PMOI as a terrorist organisation under the Terrorism Act 2000, without a shred of evidence. The former home secretary, Jack Straw, admitted in 2006 that he had banned the PMOI because the mullahs had demanded it.

The terror tag caused anger among parliamentarians on all sides, since the movement had seen 120,000 of its members executed by the regime because of their defence of democracy and human rights. In spring 2006, 35 MPs and lords launched a legal challenge to the ban. The government used every opportunity to delay the hearings. Its case was as thin as it was phoney.

Finally, POAC ruled that the PMOI is not concerned in terrorism. It found that the home secretary’s decision to refuse the application that we had made for de-proscription was “flawed”, “perverse” and “must be set aside”.

Having ruled that the secretary of state got the law wrong and failed to take account of all relevant facts, POAC added: ” … having carefully considered all the material before us, we have concluded that the decision [of the secretary of state] … is properly characterised as perverse.” Thus, POAC ordered the new home secretary to “lay before parliament the draft of an order under section 3(3)(b) of the 2000 act removing the PMOI from the list of proscribed organisations”.

Immediately after the damning judgement, the Home Office announced it would seek leave to appeal; leave to appeal that was resoundingly rejected by POAC. The suspicion is this was yet another attempt in the failed policy of appeasing the mullahs.

This is not the first time the government has refused to obey the law. In Dec 2006, the European court of justice ruled that the PMOI should be removed from the EU’s list of individuals and groups whose assets were frozen as part of the “war on terrorism”. The PMOI were added to this list in 2002 while Straw was foreign secretary and had a habit of making frequent and fruitless trips to visit Tehran as it began its uranium enrichment activities.

That judgment described the ban on the PMOI as “unlawful” and said it must be annulled. Immediately, however, government representatives in the EU began to make the rounds in Brussels, urging the 27-nation bloc to ignore the ruling. And so they did. In June of last year, the EU council of ministers decided that it would “maintain” the PMOI in the terrorist list – in blatant violation of its own laws.

Attempts by the UK/EU to persuade the mullahs to abandon their bid for nuclear weapons and to stop killing British troops in Iraq have failed. The last thing our world needs is the mullahs’ lethal mix of violent fundamentalism and nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them.

POAC’s decision signals that the Iranian resistance – demonised, vilified, unjustly labelled terrorist – wants no more than to help the people of Iran to rid themselves of the misrule of the mullahs.

I now invite Straw to apologise for the hurt and harm he has done to the Iranian resistance. He acknowledged when he banned the PMOI that it had no presence in the UK or any record of damage to UK or western interests in the Middle East – a novel definition of terrorism.

The pledge of Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the coalition National Council of Resistance of Iran which includes the PMOI, is for freedom, democracy and social justice which ensures women have an equal share in the nation’s affairs in an Iran which separates religion and state – a new Iran that can take its place in the international community rather than being a loathed and dangerous pariah.

Iran will be free. It needs the new home secretary, Jacqui Smith, to distance herself from Straw’s dodgy record towards the democratic Iranian opposition by de-proscribing the PMOI immediately.

Empower Iranian people for democratic change

Wednesday, 23 January 2008

NCRI – Speaking to a meeting in Atlanta on Monday, January 21, Professor Raymond Tanter, president of the Iran Policy Committee said, “The most powerful tool the United States can use to put Tehran’s rulers on alert that gross violations of human rights must end is to empower the Iranian people for democratic change.”

“To this end, the United States should remove the terrorist designations of the main, democratic Iranian opposition groups. The evidence behind such designations is specious, and the hampering of the democratic opposition jeopardizes U.S. national security interests,” he reiterated.

Speaking on Dr. Martin Luther King Day, Professor Tanter explained King’s position on human rights abroad, which is based upon one fundamental principle: Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

He went on to describe how impressively Dr. King’s legacy continued after his death and that “The ideals of Martin Luther King Jr. were a critical source of inspiration to democratic movements” around the world.

On human rights and democratic opposition in Iran he said, “The main opposition groups, the Mojahedin-e Khalq and the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), in stark contrast to the regime, are democratic, inclusive of women, and have as one of their highest missions the protection of human rights in Iran. In fact, NCRI President-elect Maryam Rajavi has looked to Dr. King’s Birmingham Letter as a source of inspiration as the Iranian people are terrorized by those ruling Tehran.”