Ashraf: A stay of execution?

Yesterday (15.12.09) Khalil Abadi, 44, stood in the December chill of London’s Whitehall, just 100 yards or so from the Ministry of Defence, not far from Downing Street and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

It was a bleak day; the day Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki had declared that Khalil’s relatives in Iraq’s Ashraf refugee camp, along with the other 3,400 men women and children who had lived there for nearly 24 years, would be forcibly relocated to a grim former prison camp in the desert.

Khalil is one of many Iranian exiles, and British supporters, who staged a hunger strike outside the US Embassy in London’s Grosvenor Square at the end of July, in protest at the brutal assault on Ashraf by Iraqi security forces. Weak ,after more than 70 days without food, he and his companions were eventually rewarded by news that the 37 hostages taken in that attack had been released.

Yesterday the thoughts of Khalil and his companions were once again focused on Ashraf as Lord Robin Corbett (pictured) waved a statement from the Iranian Embassy - attributed to ‘The Closure Committee of the New Iraq Camp’ - and berated those politicians ‘across the road’ whose failure to act had allowed the parlous situation to develop.



Ironically the year long media ban on entering Ashraf was lifted by Baghdad just days before the scheduled eviction and an escorted tour of the closure preparations hastily arranged. A reported bomb blast near an area where reporters were gathered was quickly blamed on the PMOI (People’s Mujahedeen Organisation of Iran) to which Ashraf’s refugee resident’s belong.

Spokeswoman Laila Jazayeri, in London supporting the rally, said “It’s pathetic to try to blame the PMOI. We have wanted media to have access to the camp for months. This is just a government attempt to crudely spin publicity and frighten them away.”

In Iraq, police with loud hailers drove around Ashraf reminding residents of the deadline set by Prime Minister Al-Maliki for their removal - but PMOI representative Mehdi Farahi told Iraqi officials that residents would not leave the land they had bought and lived on for so long.

He said "Any attempt to expel us forcibly will lead to the same clashes and confrontations as those of July 28 and 29. The manner in which the Iraqi Government is acting is contrary to international law."
As Khalil and others started to assemble in London, later to be joined by Lord’s Robin Corbett and Brian Cotter, and lawyers David Vaughan and Nigel Pleming, 37 police vehicles had already entered the camp with officials from the Iraqi Committee for Closing Ashraf (CCA). Journalists and photographers were allowed in with them.

Ashraf’s residents offered no resistance and left all doors and buildings open for visits by the police, Iraqi officials and reporters.

After a meeting between CCA officials and PMOI representatives Iraqi forces took to the streets distributing pamphlets and announcing through loudspeakers that “the Iraqi Government is determined to relocate the residents of this camp to another location” and “willing individuals can refer to the police station or any one of the patrolling vehicles.”

Residents were invited to leave Ashraf and move to ‘luxury hotels in Baghdad’. According to the NCRI not one of the 3,400 residents responded to the offer and the minibuses which had come to displace them returned empty.

By mid afternoon all Iraqi forces had left Ashraf, taking with them all the journalists they had brought.
With nothing resolved, but a growing awareness that the eyes of the world are now on Ashraf both sides are uneasy. Back in London Jazayeri said: “The threat of violence is still very real as the Iraqis could attack the camp and do what they did last time at any moment. There are no guarantees, no written assurances about this. These people are all 'Protected Persons' under the terms of the Geneva Convention and all they are asking for is their basic international and humanitarian rights to be respected by the Iraqi Government. ”

In a ‘relocation’ as questionable as that which saw Germany’s Jews transported to concentration camps in WW2, Ashraf’s population of men, women and children have been told that their new home will be Neqrat al-Salman, a desolate military prison that has been compared to the notorious Abu Ghraib.

A grim fortress in the as-Salman desert region of Al-Muthanna it was used by US forces until last year. Neqrat as-Salman has housed many political prisoners over the years and thousands have died there. It is several days walk from the nearest oasis and the closest location with drinking water is approximately 90 miles away. Hellishly hot in summer it inhabits a landscape replete with snakes, scorpions and no vegetation.

Iraqi army Colonel Bassel told journalists "Camp residents have been aware since October 19 that they are to be cleared out and moved elsewhere while respecting international human rights standards. If they refuse, a high committee will decide what measures to take and we will resolve the problem in a peaceful manner," he added.

The statement from the Iraqi Prime Minister announcing the camp's closure was released on 10 December ; it said “We have taken the decision to get them (the PMOI) out of Iraq . . . and the process of their moving to Neqrat al-Salman is a step on the way of taking them out of the country.

"Their presence in Ashraf represents a danger because of their historical relations with certain political groups, notably with the remains of the former (Iraqi) regime and members of Al-Qaeda."

The United States said last week that it expected the Baghdad government to act legally and humanely when it relocates the camp residents. "The Government of Iraq has assured us that they would not deport any of these citizens to any country where they would be having a well-grounded fear of being treated inhumanely," said State Department spokesman Ian Kelly. But he did not question Iraq’s right to move the refugees.

As Tuesday’s protestors in Whitehall dispersed Khalil’s thoughts were with his relatives. Curious pedestrians attracted by flags and impassioned speeches began to drift away as the speeches ended. “What was that all about then?” a passing photographer asked me.

Laila shrugged. “People should know what is happening. Why is the UN Secretary General silent. Why are the media silent? Why is the UK Government silent?”Sir John Chilcot’s inquiry into events between 2001 and 2009, covering the decision to invade Iraq, is headline news – a retrospective scrutiny of a conflict that is already becoming part of history. Ashraf’s parlous future, and Iran’s hold over the Iraqi regime, is part of its legacy.

Ashraf: Countdown to genocide . . .

“We’ve got to do all we can to raise awareness of this so that people will know what is going on – but more importantly, so that the Iraqi Government knows that the world is watching and that if what they did in July is repeated there’s going to be, again, a huge question mark about why British troops, men and women, gave their lives to give a new chance for Iraq to build a society that’s free and democratic.” – Lord Corbett of Castle Vale, 10 December 2009


Ten days before Christmas more than 3,000 people face eviction from their home of 20 years in what Labour peer and civil liberties champion Lord Robin Corbett has described as ‘a pact with the devil’.
The men, women and children facing forcible displacement are Iranian refugees, members of the People’s Mujahedeen Organisation of Iran (PMOI), a pro-democracy group granted safe haven under the Geneva Convention. They live in Ashraf, an isolated desert encampment 60km north of Baghdad, dependent on deliveries by road for its survival. Their forced removal comes with the endorsement of Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki whose website publicised a 15th December ‘deadline’ for the evacuation.
While the Iraqi Government now claims that ‘agreement’ has been reached with Ashraf residents the message from those inside is that this is untrue and they are under siege. For days deliveries of meat, vegetables, medicine, fuel and hygiene products have been blocked. Food rots outside the gates. Doctors and journalists are denied access.

To some Iraq’s fixation with a refugee camp in the middle of nowhere is perplexing and dismissed as a domestic issue. But as Iran’s nuclear capability comes under increasing scrutiny and Iraq’s internal stability is shaken by bomb attacks on the capital a bigger picture becomes clearer.

During Iran’s sham elections Ayatollah Khamenei officially demanded that the Iraqi President and Prime Minister agree to expel the PMOI from their country as soon as possible.

President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, in a message to British supporters, explained “Ashraf is the frontline bastion in defending democracy and human rights in Iran. If the regime is defeated in its bid to destroy Ashraf, it cannot contain the people’s uprising.”

Ashraf has achieved iconic status among freedom-loving Iranians, exerting an influence well beyond its geographical boundaries. Paradoxically, this was enhanced by the Iraqi assault on its inhabitants in July.

Mrs. Rajavi told British peers and MPs “The UN High Commission for Refugees, the International Committee of the Red Cross and UN Assistance Mission Iraq has warned repeatedly against forced displacement of Ashraf residents in violation of international human rights law.

“The mullahs are horrified at the rising protests. They insist on distancing Ashraf as far from the (Iranian) border as possible in order to eliminate the dedicated women and men who act as inspiration to the Iranian people’s struggle for freedom. The inhuman siege on Ashraf is the prelude to this plot.”

Speaking only hours ahead of the publicised eviction deadline Lord Corbett asked why the Iraqi president was so exercised about removal of refugees when the country’s capital, Baghdad, was being wrecked by explosions.
“Is this all President Al-Maliki has on his mind? The young, struggling democracy that people are trying to build in his country is still under threat from extremists and one finger we know is in that pie, determined to make life difficult for the new Iraq, belongs to those across the border (in Iran) who, in this pact with the devil, have demanded that whatever force is needed will be used against Camp Ashraf.”
Addressing a cross party assembly of MPs, peers and guests Lord Corbett expressed his disgust at the British Government’s inertia and lambasted Ivan Lewis, Minister of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, who still regards the refugees as members of a terrorist organisation.
(In fact the “terror-tag” was formerly lifted from the PMOI last year by the POAC (Proscribed Organisation Appeal Commission). The then Home Secretary Jacqui Smith’s appeal against the POAC decision was not only thrown out but branded by the Appeal Court as “capricious and speculative”).
Lord Corbett said “I wrote to Ivan Lewis at the end of last month (November), to make sure he knew about the threat to Camp Ashraf made on the 29th of October. He treated with contempt the decision of the POAC and the Court of Appeal and the Council of Ministers of the European Union . . . . The FCO hangs on to stale allegations about the PMOI that have no current relevance. And in many cases the source of the allegations cannot be confirmed.
“When Ivan Lewis wrote back to me, on December 2nd, his letter didn’t even mention the threat to use force against Ashraf in 120 hours time. I find this shaming and I have written to tell him so.”
“I said please do not waste time repeating the many undertakings Iraq has given about its responsibility in ensuring the safety and security of Iranian dissident refugees in Ashraf. Its government violently breached those in a brutal attack on defenceless residents on the 28th of July; residents who offered only passive resistance against thugs in security uniforms who attacked with chains, axes, poles and live ammunition, killing 11 and wounding 500.”
To suggestions that there was no evidence Lord Corbett said “He has had – as have others in the FCO – a DVD of those events. And the Embassy in Baghdad has had copies of the DVD because I gave it to someone in the FCO who said his colleague was going out there the next day.”
Quoting from his latest letter to Ivan Lewis at the FCO he read “We will not support Iraq dancing to Iran’s tune. The UK is part of the coalition still in Iraq and silence on the issue of proper respect for human rights and international law is no adequate response. Your silence at this looming outrage will shame our Government.”
Frustration about FCO inaction and seeming lack of interest by the British media has baffled many people including Lord Corbett. His response to FCO appeals to ‘trust Iraqi undertakings’ is scathing: “They are not worth the paper they are written on. While the (Iraqi) Minister for Human Rights is giving these assurances to our Embassy Staff, the Prime Minister is making it clear that come December 15th, whatever force is needed to remove people from Ashraf and to raze it to the ground, they are prepared to use.”
And the consequence of further non-intervention is something he is clear about.
“If this attack takes place there will be murder in the desert. The only real way to stop this massacre happening – and that’s what it’s going to be – we really must see a UN force of some kind stationed at Ashraf.
“We’ve got to do all we can to raise awareness of this so that people will know what is going on – but more importantly, so that the Iraqi Government knows that the world is watching and that if what they did in July is repeated, there’s going to be, once again, a huge question mark about why British troops, men and women, gave their lives to give a new chance for Iraq to build a society that’s free and democratic.”
The PMOI opposed both the Shah and the equally undemocratic fundamentalist clerical regime that replaced him. In the 1980s they were accused of orchestrating a bombing campaign against new Islamist leadership in which many senior officials were killed. As exiles the PMOI were welcomed by former Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, who was at war with Iran at the time. He funded and armed the PMOI's military wing, the National Liberation Army of Iran, which fought alongside Iraqi troops.
But in 2003, following the invasion of Iraq, the PMOI disarmed and, following an investigation by the UN in which every resident was individually interrogated, the people of Ashraf were duly accorded “protected person” status under Article 4 of Geneva Convention.

A US force was tasked with overseeing this, but its protection was withdrawn in January 2009 and six months later 36 Ashraf residents were detained by the Iraqi authorities after a violent assault on the camp. The attack was captured on video that showed Iraqi police and soldiers shooting and beating camp residents with clubs and chains. The film, shot by residents using mobile phones, recorded the violence that resulted in 11 deaths and many injuries. It also showed US troops looking on passively before driving away in their humvees.

The July assault provoked a worldwide protest and, in the UK, a 72-day hunger strike outside the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square supported by the Archbishop of Canterbury and multi faith leaders from across London.

Although it resulted in release of the Ashraf hostages the victory was short-lived. Pressure to isolate the residents continued.

Members of the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom see the threatened transfer of the refugees to Murat al-Salman, near the Saudi border, as appeasement of the Iranian regime, the prelude to slaughter and the first step in exile or destruction of the group seen as a beacon of hope to dissenters in Teheran.
Former Home Secretary Baron David Waddington QC, a former Conservative MP, said “The Iranian regime continues to defy United Nations and world opinion as, hand-in-hand with the expression of dissent in the country . . . it carries on with its programme of uranium enrichment. How much longer can our government afford to tolerate this defiance which, if allowed to continue, will allow Iran and the mullah’s to become a nuclear power with weapons threatening the peace of the Middle East and far beyond?
“As to Ashraf; Britain and America have a special responsibility here and it is to restrain the Iraqi authorities from illegal action against the residents. There is no doubt that the people of Ashraf are entitled to protection under international law, as has recently been recognised by the National Court of Spain. What is clear is that if America and Britain do not act to bring home to Iraq its responsibilities under international law, they themselves risk having to accept responsibility in the court of public opinion for what may well turn out to be a terrible tragedy.”
“Already the people of Ashraf are being denied medical supplies and assistance – assistance even to those who suffered under the attack in July. Already there have been further cuts in the supplies of fuel, with tanker drivers attempting to get in being arrested and put in jail.”
Laila Jazayeri, spokeswoman for the National Council of Resistance, later issued a statement: “While the international community has been enraged by plans to forcibly displace Ashraf residents and Amnesty International has strongly denounced such an act, some international media have told the Iranian Resistance that the spokesman of the Iraqi government had told their correspondents based in Baghdad that the government had reached an agreement with the residents of Ashraf on their displacement, planned for December 15, and had obtained their consent. This claim is totally unfounded and untrue.

“It is only intended to deceive the public opinion.”



END

Hungry for justice - dying to tell

Watch film on:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDEeufl-aQA

Lord Brian Cotter who described himself as 'dumfounded' at the lack of

action over Ashraf speaks to the Foreign Office from outside the US Embassy.

Picture and film: Glyn Strong

CAMP ASHRAF PROTEST – DAY 68

Dear Mr Obama . . .

Twenty hunger strikers outside the US Embassy in London’s Grosvenor Square will be joined by hundreds of supporters tonight (Saturday, 3rd October) between 6.00pm and 8.00pm. Some of those fasting have not eaten for 68 days and are seriously unwell.

Since the original 12 friends and relatives of those living in beleagured Camp Ashraf started their vigil many non-Iranians have joined them, for short or extended periods, including British barrister Margaret Owen and activist Leon Menzies Racionzer. Similar protests are taking place around the world.

Appeals by Amnesty, Reporters Without Borders, the Chartered Institute of Journalists, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carlile, Lord Cotter, Lord Clarke and many MPs and MEPs neither the British, nor the US governments have engaged with the protestors.

An open letter to Mr Obama, signed by hundreds of concerned supporters people and all hunger strikers, will be presented at the event this evening. There will also be a performance showing how the 36 hostages have been forcefully removed from prison by Iraqi security forces and taken to an unknown location in Baghdad. Many were injured in the original assault on Ashraf - all are weak. Fears are mounting that they will be tortured and deported to Iran.

On Tuesday, 29 September 2009 AFP reported: “Iraqi authorities have refused to allow 36 Iranian dissidents seized in a July raid to return to their base despite a court ruling they must be released, a judicial official said today.The members of the People's Mujahedeen, an exiled opposition group, were arrested by Iraqi police during a raid on Camp Ashraf, in Diyala province north of Baghdad, which left 11 camp residents dead. "I released them; I said that they should go back to Camp Ashraf," Judge Ali al-Timimi told AFP, referring to a decision he delivered on Sunday.

A judicial official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Iraqi authorities had refused to release the group because they considered them having illegally infiltrated Iraq. "It ... became clear that the allegations were unfounded from the start and were meant for covering up the crimes against humanity that took place in Ashraf," People's Mujahedeen spokesman Shahriar Kia said in an e-mailed statement. Earlier this month, US Ambassador Christopher Hill vowed to press the Iraqi government, which the Mujahedeen say answers to Tehran, to live up to assurances to treat the residents humanely and make sure they are not repatriated to Iran.

The group was founded in 1965 in opposition to the shah of Iran. It has subsequently fought to oust the clerical regime which took power in the 1979 Islamic revolution. The group set up Camp Ashraf in the 1980s - when former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was at war with Iran - as a base to operate against the Tehran government.”

Ashraf protestors starve outside US Embassy

Fatemeh Khazeri, 44, holds a picture of her son and sister. Her sister is in Camp Ashraf.

Fatemeh had not eaten for 45 days when this picture was taken.

Photographer: Glyn Strong

A few yards away from the steps of the US Embassy 12 men and women are on hunger strike. Police keep a distant eye on them, passers-by and people queueing for visas cast curious glances at the makeshift shelter that has been their home for more than six weeks. Their mute appeal is a desperate attempt to get help for their friends and relatives in the refugee enclave of Camp Ashraf.

Laila, who has been battling furiously to attract media attention to their plight told me: "The people in Ashraf are the cream of Iranian society. They are intellectuals, enlightened and secular - the antithesis of Islamic fundamentalism. Their leaders are women, they believe in equality and freedom."

Their suffering is documented in a book that makes sobering reading. It lists the thousands who have died or disappeared, picturing many of them and the tortures they endured. Some of the hunger strikers point to the names or pictures of family members. Laila's husband is one of them. This chilling book of the dead is called "Fallen for Freedom. 20,000 PMOI Martyrs".


At the end of July Iraqi security forces launched an assault on Iranian refugees under their protection in Camp Ashraf, a relatively unknown enclave situated in Diyala province, 120 km west of the Iranian border and 60 km north of the Baghdad.

Eleven were killed, 500 hundred wounded and 36 taken into custody. Since then no international journalists have been allowed access to interview eye witnesses or victims.

Fears of a second, even bloodier massacre, are mounting unless the International community intervenes.

Ashraf is a ‘safe haven’ where residents were recognised in 2004 as protected persons under the 4th Geneva Convention. They are members of the People’s Mujahedeen Organisation of Iran (PMOI), a group politically opposed to the current regime and, for their own safety, living in exile.
The camp’s uniformed attackers used live ammunition, truncheons, axes, sickles, tear gas, hot water cannons, and bulldozers against the defenceless residents. US forces allegedly stood back and filmed the carnage but no media were present. Despite protests from Journalists Without Borders no unaligned reporters have been allowed into the camp since the assault. Only Iranian TV, the Arabic channel of Al-Alam and the Press TV have been given access and all reported in favour of the Iraqi police.

Extensive video evidence of the attack was captured on mobile phones and widely posted on the internet.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqC61sddaFs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJwiK5S_W1s - Iraqi police beat unarmed civilians in Camp Ashraf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMnPSqesQlg - Civilians shot and killed by Iraqi police in Camp Ashraf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPhD1wotzzQ - Iraqi police with gun aiming at people
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1thwPuuRoQ - Head injuries in Camp Ashraf medical centre
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1bKngVzLO8 - Seriously injured civilians in Camp Ashraf medical centre
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVmdFDvShpc - Civilians shot by Iraqi police in Camp Ashraf http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6DKL3-f4aQ - More attacks on Ashraf residents http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdGH_Ic88Xc - The second half of this short clip shows Iraqi armoured vehicles trying to run over the residents
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi_dc3rJ82c - Female residents of Ashraf attacked by Iraqi police
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02cx4X6Lyzk


The lack of international response and paucity of media coverage sparked worldwide protest among outraged relatives of the Ashraf victims and other Iranians and in London 12 are on hunger strike. For some their fast is entering its seventh week.

They are beginning to experience acute symptoms- internal bleeding, loss of vision and multiple organ failure. One woman has suffered a heart attack. The youngest is a 19 year old girl.

In a statement issued on 11 September 2009 Amnesty International expressed its deep concern to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki about the killings and other abuses committed by Iraqi security forces and the continuing detention without charge or trial of the 36 camp residents.
In its letter to Prime Minister al-Maliki, Amnesty International urged him to establish immediately a full and independent investigation into the methods used by Iraqi security forces when taking control of Camp Ashraf, and to make its findings public as soon as possible, The organisation urged him also to ensure that members of the security forces and other officials found responsible for using excessive force and committing serious human rights violations were immediately suspended from duty and promptly brought to justice.

The US disarmed Ashraf residents and signed an agreement with each of them to guarantee their protection until final determination of their status, but it handed over protection of Ashraf to the Iraqi government at the start of 2009.

Article 45 of the 4th Geneva Convention says “If a government fails to carry out the provisions of the Convention in any important respect, the government by which the protected persons were transferred (in this case the US) shall, upon being so notified by the protecting government, take effective measures to correct the situation or shall request the return of the protected persons. Such request must be complied with.” After the massacre in Ashraf, the US has a duty to request that Iraq hand back protection of the camp.

UN Security Council resolution 1883, adopted in August 2009, gives the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) a mandate and responsibility for the case of Ashraf.
Prominent UK lawyers have produced a legal report, supported by international colleagues, that outlines the legal requirements for UN and US intervention – as well as the criminal ramifications of the action of the Iraqi forces.

The hunger strikers demands are:

1. Iraqi police withdraw from Ashraf and release the 36 people taken hostage and allow the residents access to lawyers, doctors, journalists and their relatives.
2. US forces temporarily assume protection of Ashraf under Article 45 of the 4th GC until an international force can take over.
3. An international force takes over protection of Ashraf and the UNAMI immediately stations an international monitoring team inside the camp to prevent further attacks.
4. UN bodies reiterate clearly that the “principle of non-refoulement” forbids forced displacement of Ashraf residents within Iraq.