March 29, 2024

Bipartisan Political Leaders Urge Removal of MEK from Terrorist List, Denounce Attempt to Silence State Department Policy Critics

PRNEWSWIRE

WASHINGTON, March, 24, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ – With a federal appeals court deadline looming for the U.S. State Department to answer why it has defied earlier court rulings requiring review of a decision to maintain the main Iranian opposition movement, the Mujahedin-e Khaq (MEK) on the terrorist list, top former US officials and Members of Congress are urging the Department to remove the group immediately.

“I believe we will not only get our day in court, I believe we will succeed,” former U.S. Department of Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge told an audience of Members of Congress, staff members, and Iranian-Americans during an event, marking the Iranian New Year, Nowrouz. “Sometimes justice takes a little longer than normal, but sooner or later, righteousness and the law prevail, and we will prevail.”

Other speakers included Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), the House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair, Rep. Mike Kaufman (R-CO), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) and retired Army Col. Wesley Martin, who commanded Camp Ashraf.

At issue is the fate of 3,400 Iranian dissidents now housed at Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty in Iraq; their safe relocation has been vastly complicated by the State Department’s refusal the make a decision on the Status of the MEK.

In 2010, a three-judge panel in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously ruled that the State Department had violated the due process rights of the MEK and ordered the Obama administration to revisit the issue. Since then, the State Department continues to be in violation of the due process in virtue of its refusal to make a decision based on instructions given by the Court.

Earlier this month, attorneys for the MEK filed a writ of mandamus seeking the court’s intervention in light of State inaction. The court did so expeditiously, and gave the government a deadline of March 26 to respond to the mandamus.

In the meantime, in a move which some observers believe is tied to the court developments, the Treasury Department is apparently contemplating a “potential” investigation into the source of funding for events where a number of senior former federal law enforcement, intelligence and and national security officials had urged that the MEK be dropped from the State Department’s terror list and the residents of Ashraf be protected.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-CA, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Oversight and Investigations subcommittee, has called this inquiry “a travesty,” adding that it is “a sin that our government is going after these people trying to support the people of Iran.”

“It seems that the method to silence those who are in favor of the liberation of the MEK from the foreign terrorist organization… is to attack them personally… That is not going to work. Whoever is behind the attacks on these good men and women with unbelievable credentials, who believe in the de-listing of the MEK, it will not succeed,” emphasized the Texas Republican, Rep. Ted Poe.

Since the Court ruling, nearly 130 members of Congress, including House Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI), Oversight and Government Reform Chair Darrel Issa (R-CA) and Armed Services Committee Chair Howard McKeon (R-CA), have co-sponsored resolutions calling for the delisting of the MEK. 

SOURCE: Californian Society for Democracy in Iran

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bipartisan-political-leaders-urge-removal-of-mek-from-terrorist-list-denounce-attempt-to-silence-state-department-policy-critics-144065216.html

Court orders US to review terror label for Iran exiles

AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

WASHINGTON — A US court has ordered the government to examine quickly a request by the main Iranian opposition group to be taken off a US terror blacklist, according to documents seen Wednesday by AFP.

The People’s Mujahedeen of Iran (PMOI), Iran’s main exiled opposition, has appealed to US courts to rule urgently on the issue “to prevent the Iraqi government from continuing to endanger the lives of PMOI at Camp Ashraf, Iraq.”

Camp Ashraf, 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the Iranian border, houses some 3,300 supporters of the exiled group, which has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States since 1997.

Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein welcomed the exiles to Iraq during the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran war and they have lived at the camp ever since.

But it has become a mounting problem for Iraqi authorities since US forces handed over security for the camp in January 2009, and amid pressure from Tehran to hand over the members of the militant group.

Baghdad is now seeking to close the camp by April.

The People’s Mujahedeen is the main component of the Iranian opposition group, the National Council of Resistance, which said an attack by Iraqi forces on the camp in April 2011 left 36 people dead and 300 injured.

The Mujahedeen in its filing said “expedited consideration by this court is necessary and to forestall the humanitarian crisis that threatens to unfold as third countries are reluctant to accept Ashraf residents for resettlement as long as PMOI remains on the (terror) list.”

The Washington appeals court on Monday gave the US government until March 26 to reply to the People’s Mujahedeen request.

The same court in 2010 ruled that the secretary of state had violated the constitution by refusing the group’s request, and had given the State Department 180 days to review the status of the People’s Mujahedeen.

“The secretary’s indecision imperils the lives and safety of PMOI’s members and supporters,” the Mujahedeen argued.

But the government has argued that it needs time to coordinate its response at a high-level, among different agencies including with intelligence bodies.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jst73NnEgd_19BuKsuM85Ag1OBYg

Court backs Iranians

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The Iranian resistance won another victory in a U.S. federal court this week, when a three-judge panel ruled the group has a right to a speedy hearing on its petition to be removed from the U.S. terrorist list – after nearly two years of delay by the State Department.

The judges gave the federal government until March 26 to respond to the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), which was added to the list by President Bill Clinton when he was trying to open talks with the theocratic Iranian regime in 1997.

“It’s certainly a favorable development,” said Ali Safavi, president of Near East Policy Research in Northern Virginia and a supporter of the PMOI.

Mr. Safavi said the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia recognized that 3,300 members and supporters of the PMOI face a life-threatening situation in Camp Ashraf in Iraq, where they have been based since the 1980s.

The Iraqi government has ordered the Iranians expelled from the country by the end of April, but no other nation will accept them as refugees because the PMOI is on the U.S. terror list. Iraqi security forces have attacked the unarmed camp residents twice, killing 11 in July 2009 and 34 in April 2011.

The Justice Department, representing Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, argued that the court should deny the PMOI’s request for a writ of mandamus, a legal maneuver that asks a court to enforce an earlier order.

In 2010, the court ruled that the State Department had violated the PMOI’s constitutional right to due process two years earlier when then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice refused a request from the group to be removed from the list.

The court gave the Obama administration 180 days to review the status of the PMOI, which renounced its armed struggle against Iran in 2003, when U.S. forces disarmed the rebels after the invasion of Iraq.

Nearly two years later, the government is still arguing it needs more time to consider whether the resistance meets the standards to remain listed as a terrorist group.

Justice Department attorney Douglas N. Letter, in his response to the PMOI case, said the State Department must review “highly classified information, expert analyses of the material in the administration record, delicate foreign relations concerns and complex national security determinations.”

He argued that a decision on the PMOI’s status would have to be made by high-level officials at the State, Treasury and Justice departments.

PMOI attorney Viet Dinh, a former Justice Department lawyer, complained about the “unwarranted and unreasonable” delay by the State Department.

“While the secretary [of state] dithers on PMOI’s request to revoke its [terrorist] designation, Ashraf residents face a continuing threat of deadly violence from Iraqi forces, and other countries are reluctant to accept them for resettlement as long as PMOI remains on the list,” Mr. Dinh said.

Earlier this week, members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee pressed Mrs. Clinton to take the PMOI off the terrorist list.

“We are deeply concerned about the security and safety of these residents of Camp Ashraf,” Mrs. Clinton said. “We continue to work on our review of the [PMOI] designation.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/mar/6/embassy-row-court-backs-iranians/

Iran group gets U.S. backers

THE NATIONAL LAW JOURNAL

Coalition urging State Department to take dissidents off terror list

For nearly 20 months, the legal status of a dissident Iranian group has remained in limbo, mired in a U.S. State Department review of the association’s official designation as a foreign terrorist organization.

A federal appeals court in Washington directed the agency in July 2010 to take another look at the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, saying the government violated the group’s rights during an earlier assessment. But the agency,  almost two years later, still hasn’t made a decision.

Frustrated by the government’s protracted silence, lawyers for the People’s Mojahedin, or PMOI, last week asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to immediately force the State Department to act.

The group’s prominent legal team — including Mayer Brown’s Andrew Frey in New York and Viet Dinh of Washington’s Bancroft — filed a petition on Feb. 27 that could force the government to either remove the resistance group from the terror list or require the State Department to rule within 30 days. The lawyers urged the appeals court to expedite the case, arguing that the lives of PMOI members and supporters are in danger at an exile camp near the Iran-Iraq border.

“The fact we have sat here for 20 months without any resolution really accentuated the need for court action,” said Dinh, a former top Justice Department lawyer in the George W. Bush administration and a founding Bancroft partner. “We’ve found ourselves in a situation where Secretary [Hillary] Clinton can achieve the same result of denial by sitting on our
application.”

In appellate court papers, the lawyers advocating for PMOI described the State Department’s inaction as an “unjustified pocket veto” of the group’s request for removal from the terrorist organization list. The attorneys contend the State Department only had 180 days by statute to resolve the dispute.

The Justice Department’s Douglas Letter, a senior Civil Division appellate attorney who specializes in terrorism litigation, declined to comment. In a court filing on March 1, Letter urged the D.C. Circuit to deny the petition from the Iranian resistance group, which is also called the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization.

The final decision, Letter said, takes into consideration “delicate foreign relations concerns and complex national security determinations” that are unsuited for a judicial order compelling the State Department to make a decision.

PMOI’s advocates stretch well beyond Iranian community associations in northern California and in Texas, both of which spent hundreds of thousands of dollars last year on lobbying fees over the PMOI terrorist designation. Prominent former public officials representing Republican and Democratic administrations have advocated for the removal of the PMOI from the terrorist-organization list. Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2005 to 2009, spoke earlier this month at a conference in Washington in support of PMOI.

Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani and former FBI director Louis Freeh were among the 21 signatories on a friend-of-the-court brief filed on Feb. 29 in support of the Iranian group’s petition. The group included top former officials in the national security and intelligence arenas.

PATIENCE EXHAUSTED

PMOI’s attorneys, who also include Greenberg Traurig partner Steven Schneebaum and Washington solo Allan Gerson, argue that the dissident group renounced terrorist activity in 2001 and is now bent on seeing a democratic, secular regime in Iran through social and political change.

PMOI, which was first designated a terrorist organization in 1997 under President Bill Clinton, wants to replace the current Iranian leadership through the National Liberation Army and through an opposition group called the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

Inclusion on the terror list, however, presents obstacles for fundraising and support. The State Department’s terrorist list comprises 50 groups, including al-Queda in Iraq, the Palestine Liberation Front and Hizballah. Federal law makes it a crime for anyone to provide material support or resources to a listed organization. Representatives and members of a designated group can be denied entry into, or removed from, the United States. Banks are authorized to freeze an organization’s funds.

DOJ said in court papers filed in an earlier version of the case in the D.C. Circuit that PMOI, founded in 1965 by students and intellectuals, engaged in terrorist attacks inside Iran in the 1970s that killed several U.S. military personnel and civilians. PMOI, Justice lawyers said, claimed responsibility in 1979 for the killing of an American Texaco executive.

DOJ’s legal team said PMOI had the burden to show that current circumstances had sufficiently changed to warrant revocation from the list. The United Kingdom removed the group from its terrorist list in 2008, followed by the European Union the next year.

The D.C. Circuit in the summer of 2010 revived PMOI’s legal challenge of its designation, weighing in for the fifth time in a series of related actions. A three-judge panel said the State Department denied the group timely access to unclassified information that the agency used to base its decision. The court remanded the case to the agency.

Dinh and Frey, a longtime U.S. Supreme Court advocate, said the State Department had no choice then but to delist PMOI.
The government, the lawyers said, cannot meet two critical prongs — that the group is still engaged in terrorist activity and that such activity threatens the security of the United States.

Frey said PMOI’s legal team did not file the mandamus petition lightly. DOJ, he said, was not pleased. “We would have preferred to have the secretary act,” Frey said. “I guess it’s fair to say my client’s patience was finally exhausted.”

The Iraqi government wants to shut down Camp Ashraf by April, presenting a challenge to relocate more than 3,200 residents. “That deadline is only two months away,” PMOI’s lawyers said in the D.C. Circuit petition. “Yet the Secretary of State shows no apparent sense of urgency to resolve PMOI’s petition for revocation by then.”

On Capitol Hill last week, Secretary Clinton told members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the State Department continues “to work on our review of [PMOI’s] designation as a foreign terrorist organization in accordance with the D.C. Circuit’s decision and applicable law.” The department, she also said, is “deeply concerned about the security and safety of the residents” at the refugee camp.

Clinton said the group’s cooperation with its removal from the Camp Ashraf base in Iraq, where thousands of PMOI members and supporters live, will be a “key factor” in the group’s removal from the foreign terrorist list.

BROAD SUPPORT

Throwing their weight behind PMOI’s legal fight are former top government officials in the national security, defense and intelligence arenas. Mukasey, who served as attorney general under Bush and who is now a partner at Debevoise & Plimpton in New York, said politics should have no role in assessing whether the Iranian resistance group remains on
the list of foreign terrorist organizations.

“When people say there’s a political component to this, that’s shocking,” Mukasey said in an interview. “There is no justification for it on the facts. The statute doesn’t say that if it’s politically convenient or advantageous you can keep them on the list.”

Advocates for PMOI in the United States, Mukasey said, are “well organized.” He said he is confident PMOI could “make a major contribution if they were allowed to function as a normal political group.”

Congressional records show that two Iranian community groups last year spent a combined $400,000 on lobbying efforts over PMOI’s designation as a terrorist group. Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld received $290,000 from the Iranian American Community of Northern California. The Iranian American Community of North Texas spent $110,000 for
lobbying work by diGenova & Toensing.

Victoria Toensing, who advocated on Capitol Hill for the group last year, trumpeted PMOI’s petition in the D.C. Circuit, saying that the legal strategy was a shot in the arm to get the State Department’s attention. “People from different disciplines have looked at this issue and see a dissident group that opposes Iran,” Toensing said. “What’s not to like?”

http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202544280386&Iran_group_gets_US_backers

Secretary Clinton Must Delist MEK; Ensure Safety, Security, and Dignity of Iranian Dissidents in Iraq

WASHINGTON, March 2, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The U.S. Committee for Camp Ashraf Residents (USCCAR) calls on U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to promptly remove Iran’s principal opposition movement, the Mujahedin-e Khalq [PMOI/MEK], from the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) and refrain from making the long-overdue delisting contingent on non-statuary demands.

USCCAR is troubled by Secretary Clinton’s remarks last Wednesday before a hearing at the House Foreign Affairs Committee where she said “MEK cooperation in the successful and peaceful closure of Camp Ashraf, the MEK’s main paramilitary base, will be a key factor in any decision regarding the MEK’s FTO status.”

The MEK must be delisted simply because, as recognized by 98 bi-partisan members of U.S. Congress and a roster of former senior U.S. national security and anti-terrorism officials, it does not meet the statuary criteria. Secretary Clinton’s remarks are, therefore, a clear breach of the statuary requirements and further underline the political nature of the decision to keep the group listed.

Contrary to Ms. Clinton’s description of Ashraf as a paramilitary base, the camp has been home to unarmed MEK members who in 2003 turned all their weapons to U.S. military. In 2004, the State Department acknowledged that MEK members were non-combatants.  In 2009, Iraqi government inspected Ashraf and found no weapons. Describing Camp Ashraf as a “paramilitary base,” would, therefore, only serve as a license for Iraq to kill the residents.

Some 400 residents have already relocated to Camp Liberty, a de facto prison run by the Iraqi government. The very Iraqi police forces which attacked Ashraf in 2009 and 2011, are now stationed inside the small area allocated to the residents in Camp Liberty, where there is no freedom of movement. Secretary Clinton should use her good offices to get the Iraqi police moved to the gates of the camp, provide access to the lawyers and family members, and allow independent human rights organizations to visit the camp.

Rather than linking MEK’s delisting to the relocation of Ashraf residents, Secretary Clinton should act promptly based on merits so as to deny justification for the murder of our loved ones in Iran and Iraq and to remove the obstacles for their resettlement in third countries. Otherwise Camp Liberty – billed a temporary transitional residence – could effectively turn into a permanent detention center. 

SOURCE: US Committee for Camp Ashraf Residents (USCCAR)

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/usccar-secretary-clinton-must-delist-mek-ensure-safety-security-and-dignity-of-iranian-dissidents-in-iraq-141216603.html

Clinton Under Pressure

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee this week pressed Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on her failure to remove the Iranian resistance from the U.S. list of terrorist groups.

They warned that the lives of more than 3,000 dissidents living in a camp in Iraq are in danger because of the State Department’s refusal to take them off the list. The Iraqi government has even used the list as an excuse to attack the unarmed dissidents, one committee member said.

Rep. Ted Poe told Mrs. Clinton that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki last year cited the U.S. terrorist designation as a reason to refuse to allow a congressional delegation to visit the rebels of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) in Camp Ashraf, north of Baghdad.

Mr. Poe, Texas Republican, recalled that Mr. Maliki said his government treats the people there as a terrorist group because the United States lists them as such.

“So he dumped it back on our designation as the reason he was treating them the way he was treating them,” he said.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher warned Mrs. Clinton that the rebels are “in grave danger.”

“There are 3,000 Iranian exiles who have been residing in Iraq … because they are enemies of the Iranian mullah dictatorship,” the California Republican said.

Mrs. Clinton defended her department’s handling of the group’s nearly 4-year-old request for removal from the list. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice rejected the request from Camp Ashraf in 2008, but a federal appeals court two years later ordered the State Department review the request.

“We are deeply concerned about the security and safety of these residents of Camp Ashraf,” Mrs. Clinton said. “We continue to work on our review of the [PMOI] designation.”

Attorneys for the PMOI this week increased pressure on the State Department by filing a request that the federal appeals court in Washington order Mrs. Clinton to remove the group from the terrorist list.

Viet Dinh, a former top Justice Department lawyer now representing the resistance, noted that Mrs. Clinton has recognized the group’s reunuciation of violence and is “legally bound to delist their organization.”

“She cannot pocket veto PMOI’s application for revocation of its terrorist status,” he said.

The group operated as an armed resistance against the Iranian regime from the Iraqi base as a guest of dictator Saddam Hussein, a bitter enemy of Iran’s.

The rebels surrendered their weapons to U.S. forces who toppled Saddam in 2003. The U.S. later declared them protected persons under international law, but Washington turned them over to Iraq on Jan. 1, 2009.

The resistance has been on the terrorist list since 1997, when President Bill Clinton declared them a terrorist group in an attempt to improve relations with Iran.

Mr. Dinh on Tuesday filed a writ of mandamus, a legal maneuver that asks a judge to order a public agency to fulfill a statutory duty. He said the PMOI’s lawyers want the federal court to “order the secretary of state to delist the group as a foreign terrorist organization.”

Mr. Dinh drew immediate support from many former U.S. national security officials who joined a legal brief filed by Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard Law School professor and one of the top U.S. defense attorneys.

Mr. Dershowitz said the former national security officials and retired generals who joined him in his brief all had access to intelligence on the PMOI or had first-hand dealings with the resistance.

They believe “there is no evidence that PMOI has the capability or intent to engage in terrorism or terrorist activities,” Mr. Dershowitz said.

He also complained that the State Department’s “foot-dragging” is “powerful evidence” it cannot justify keeping the PMOI on the list.

Others who joined Mr. Dershowitz in the brief include: former Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey; former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge; former FBI Director Louis Freeh; former New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani; and retired Gen. Hugh Shelton, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/mar/1/embassy-row-clinton-under-pressure/

Petition in US Court of Appeals to Remove PMOI from US Blacklist

WASHINGTON – Today, the legal counsel for Iran’s principal opposition movement, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK), filed a Writ of Mandamus in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to enforce the Court’s July 2010 ruling which ordered the Secretary of State to reconsider the PMOI’s petition to be removed from the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO).

The PMOI “seeks a writ of mandamus, in the face of unwarranted and unreasonable agency delay, to order the Secretary of State to delist PMOI as a designated ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization,’ or, alternatively, to act on PMOI’s request for delisting within 30 days (and specifying that, if she does not, the designation shall be revoked).”

Camp Ashraf, home to 3,400 PMOI members since 1986, was attacked by Iraqi forces in July 2009 and April 2011. The Iraqi government justified both massacres, in which 47 unarmed civilians were murdered, as cracking down on “terrorists.” According to Members of US Congress Iraqi officials have acknowledged that US designation of the PMOI is partly to blame for the bloodshed in Camp Ashraf.  The UN refugee agency officials have also told members of US Congress that as long as the PMOI remains listed, it would be near impossible to find third countries for Ashraf residents.

Camp “Liberty”: A Cruel Hoax?

THE HUFFINGTON POST

In 1932, the eminent theologian Reinhold Niebuhr wrote “Moral Man and Immoral Society” warning of the tendency of institutions to lose their sense of humanity. How better to explain today’s actions of the US State Department in toying with the lives and hopes of over 3000 Iranian dissidents being “voluntarily” relocated from Camp Ashraf , a small city 40 miles north of Baghdad, where they have lived for the last 25 years? From there they are being moved to a small isolated section of Camp Liberty, an abandoned American base, looted by the Iraqis, with no basic amenities and under the watchful eyes of Iraqi police who have viciously attacked them before.

In the State Department’s view, they are doing these dissidents, members of the MEK (The Mujahedeen-e Khalq), a favor and are not dishonoring a solemn commitment made to them by the US Army in July 2004 when it promised that they would be treated as Protected Persons under the Geneva Conventions in return for the MEK’s surrendering their means of self-protection. But, sad to say, the State Department’s benevolent view is seriously flawed.

In reality, it has, as Niebuhr warned, lost its sense of humanity and has shown instead that US assurances of protection cannot be taken seriously in the face of institutional interests. The US has ceded any rights it may have had as an occupying power to a new Iraqi regime, one which wishes to placate neighboring Iran as the devil it must deal with. Who suffers as a result? In the short run, the MEK, of course; in the long run, the United States.

To be sure, the State Department can rightly claim that it has attempted to soften the blow to which the MEK would otherwise be exposed if its people remained at Camp Ashraf. For there they would be subject to additional lethal attacks by Iraqi forces and perhaps forcible deportation to Iran to face death sentences. Instead, State, working with UN officials, has proposed the “solution” of a so called voluntary transfer to Camp Liberty, where despite sub-standard conditions it would serve as a gateway to Europe and the Americas once the new arrivals are processed as refugees by the UN.

Here is what is wrong with this scenario as provided by recent reports by those on the ground: 400 MEK members who, despite strong skepticism about the plan accepted the offer as a way of testing the good intentions of the State Department, the United Nations and the government of Iraq.

1. Camp Liberty has no serviceable water supply let alone drinking water.

2. The trailers in which new arrivals are to be housed are worn-out and extremely dirty to the point of being un-inhabitable. There are only 80 trailers and most of them lack electrical wiring and thus there is no light and no heating.

3. The sewage system is not functioning and thus the lack of hygienic facilities is likely to cause serious health problems, with raw sewage in open areas of the residential quarters.

4. Contrary to assurances by the Secretary General’s Special Representative for Iraq, Ambassador Kobler, that Camp Liberty meets humanitarian standards – and similar assurances from the State Department on which MEK members relied in accepting relocation there, minimal international humanitarian standards are blatantly absent.

5. The police headquarters is situated northwest of the camp, next to section where the residents are located. In addition there are four other police stations and checkpoints with one situated on the pathway to the dining facility so that every resident going to the dining facility must pass the police checkpoint. More ominously, the police commander in charge of the camp appears to be the same commander responsible for incursions into Camp Ashraf which on two occasions left a total of more than 40 unarmed civilians dead and hundreds wounded. In addition, police are constantly patrolling within the camp on vehicles with heavy machine-guns.

6. Furthermore, the Iraqis have installed seven surveillance cameras all directed on the residential area of the Camp. Those cameras leave absolutely no privacy for anyone.

7. A prison would be much better than Camp Liberty, because in a prison, the prison guards will have to abide by certain rules, and the prisoners have certain rights. In Camp Liberty, the Iraqi policy operation seems to be unbridled.

All of this raises the question of why the State Department would be party to such chicanery, for Camp Liberty gives no sign of being a processing center for resettlement, but more in the nature of a prison where liberty is a dead-letter word. We have only one State Department and would of course like to give it the benefit of the doubt. Certainly, this is what the leadership of the MEK has done. Yet, what credibility does the State Department have with regard to the MEK when it has persisted in keeping it on its FTO (Foreign Terrorist Organizations) List, long after the UK and EU have taken it off its respective lists for lack of any substantiating evidence.

Unfortunately, it appears that Camp Liberty may be but a cruel hoax perpetrated on this group. Surely the State Department is aware that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al -Maliki has made his intention perfectly clear: to rid the MEK from Iraqi soil. Problem is no one wants to accept them for relocation so long as they remain on the State Department FTO List. Instead of removing them from this list, the State Department, without any showing of good reason, as called for by the US Court of Appeals in Washington, has refused to delist the MEK. Thus it enables the Iraqi regime to fall back on the canard that the MEK, deemed as a terrorist entity by the United States, deserves whatever treatment the Iraqi government deems fit. Thus, understandings reached about resettlement, whatever they may be, are undermined by the State Department itself.

Apparently, the State Department refusal to budge, despite a US Court of Appeals order in July 2010 to expedite the de-designation review process, is anchored in the fantasy that Iran can be induced to negotiate its nuclear development program if Iran’s key opponents – the MEK – can be kept in shackles.

Aside from questions of the integrity of what the United States says and does – today the MEK, tomorrow who knows who?–there is something about the State Department position which defies logic as well as law. The MEK is the enemy of our enemy, not America’s enemy. It has renounced terrorism. In the face of extreme provocation the MEK has once again shown its commitment to non-violence and exhaustion of all peaceful means to transforming Iran from brutality to humanity, from theocratic autocracy to a semblance of democracy.

Perhaps, against a dismal picture so far, some good will still come of the State Department’s efforts at resettlement at Camp Liberty. This much is certain: if Camp Liberty turns out to be a hoax, there is no reason for anyone ever to believe that the United States will stand up to Iran.

Allan Gerson is the Chairman of AG International Law in Washington D.C. He is presently involved with other attorneys in representing the PMOI/MEK in its efforts to be removed from the State Department List of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/allan-gerson/camp-liberty-a-cruel-hoax_b_1294291.html

Sub-Humane Living and Security Standards in Camp Liberty

On February 17, 2012, as a goodwill gesture, 400 Iranian dissidents residing in Camp Ashraf in Iraq began their relocation from Camp Ashraf, their home of 25 years, to Camp Liberty, a former U.S. military base near Baghdad international airport. They volunteered for this transfer even though minimum guarantees for their safety and security have yet to be provided by the Iraqi Government or the United Nations. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has formally recognized the residents of Ashraf as “asylum seekers” and “persons of concern,” which entitles them to fundamental protections and security based on humanitarian standards. Nevertheless, the Iraqi Government, with the tacit approval of the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative, Martin Kobler, relocated the Iranian dissidents to Camp Liberty which, contrary to its name, is more like a prison than a transitional facility for “asylum seekers.” The Iraqi-imposed inhumane and humiliating conditions under which 400 residents were transferred to Camp Liberty, as well as the atrociously sub-humane living conditions of the camp amply reveal the nefarious intentions of the Iraqi Government.
 

Sub-Humane Living and Security Standards in Camp Liberty: Open Sewage System

 

Sub-Humane Living and Security Standards in Camp Liberty: Armed Iraqi Police Guarding a Check Point inside the Camp

 

Sub-Humane Living and Security Standards in Camp Liberty: Layers of Concrete Walls and Sand Bags Surround the Residential Area

 

Sub-Humane Living and Security Standards in Camp Liberty: State of Residential Area

  

Sub-Humane Living and Security Standards in Camp Liberty: State of Toilets in Residential Trailers

  

Sub-Humane Living and Security Standards in Camp Liberty: State of a Residential Area

 

Sub-Humane Living and Security Standards in Camp Liberty: A View of Residential Trailers

USCCAR Urges Secretary Clinton to Ensure Iraqi Guarantees for Safety and Security of 400 Iranian Asylum Seekers in Camp Liberty

WASHINGTON, Feb. 19, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — On Friday, February 17, 2012, as a goodwill gesture, 400 Iranian dissidents residing in Camp Ashraf in Iraq since 1986, many with families and relatives in the United States, began their relocation from Camp Ashraf, their home of 25 years, to Camp Liberty, a former U.S. military base near Baghdad international airport, even though minimum guarantees for their safety and security have not been provided by the Iraqi Government or the United Nations.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has formally recognized the residents of Ashraf as “asylum seekers” and “persons of concern,” which entitles them to fundamental protections and security based on humanitarian standards.

Nevertheless, the Iraqi Government, with the tacit approval of the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative, Martin Kobler, has relocated our loved ones to Camp Liberty which, contrary to its name, is, by all indications, more like a prison than a transitional facility for “asylum seekers”.

The Iraqi-imposed inhumane and humiliating conditions under which 400 residents were inspected and then transferred to Camp Liberty, as well as the atrociously sub-humane living conditions of the camp amply reveal the nefarious intentions of the Iraqi Government.

Equally appalling is the fact that the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), which is expected to be playing a humanitarian role, has increasingly acted to accommodate the Iraqi Government in exerting pressure against the residents.

Not surprising, emboldened by the UNAMI chief’s repeatedly one-sided actions and positions to the detriment of Ashraf residents, the Iraqi Government has heightened it’s blatant and repeated violations of the residents’ human rights and the December 25 Memorandum of Understating.

The US Committee for Camp Ashraf Residents (USCCAR), representing thousands of Iranian-Americans whose loved-ones reside in Camp Ashraf, urges Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to uphold the United States’ long-standing moral and legal obligations to ensure safety and security of the residents of Ashraf, particularly those 400 who are now at the mercy of Iraqi Government in Camp Liberty.

Specifically, Secretary Clinton, in line with her assurances provided on February 15, should ensure that the Iraqi Government removes its draconian restrictions on the 400 Iranian dissidents in Camp Liberty, guarantee the withdrawal of the Iraqi police from inside the camp and the freedom of movement of the residents – as stipulated by the UNHCR, as well as the unhindered access of the residents to their lawyers and their families.

Absent these guarantees, the stage would be set by the Iraqi Government to seriously jeopardize the safety and security of our loved ones in Camp Liberty. USCCAR urges the United States to address the serious concerns regarding this camp, otherwise, the relocation of the rest of Ashraf residents will be rendered moot.

A stellar roster of former senior US officials and a bi-partisan group of members of US Congress have declared their readiness to visit Camp Liberty and confirm its suitability to accommodate the Iranian asylum seekers. Such a visit and unfettered access of journalists to the camp and its residents will help to assuage the widespread anxiety of US families of the residents over their safety. To this end, Secretary Clinton should use her good offices to facilitate such a visit.

Camp Ashraf is home to 3,400 members of Iran’s principal 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

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