MEK- Liberty :Council of Europe Condemns Camp Prison

The Council of Europe has issued a statement on the lack of lack of humanitarian and human rights standards in Camp Liberty and has urged the Iraqi government to implement the minimum guarantees demanded by the residents, including the removal of all armed units from the interior of the Camp. The text of the statement reads:

•          [15/03/2012]  PACE’s Political Affairs Committee has repeated its call to the Iraqi authorities to stop turning Camp Liberty – a site near Baghdad where around 800 members of an Iranian opposition group are now living – into a prison. In a statement adopted yesterday, the committee called for armed units and surveillance to be removed from the camp, as well as free movement for its residents and improved conditions, including access to medical services, lawyers and UN monitors. The complete text of the Council’s statement:

Following the statement made in January and owing to the fact that

unfortunately no improvement has been made, the Committee on Political Affairs

and Democracy of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe calls on

the Iraqi authorities to stop turning Camp Liberty into a prison. It also calls on

the UN Secretary General to ensure the minimum guarantees required by the

camp residents.

In spite of the lack of humanitarian and human rights standards, to date, 800

Ashraf residents have been moved to Camp Liberty in order to find a peaceful

solution. But this camp is suffering from a serious shortage of drinking water and

electricity. Open sewage has made the area terribly polluted and the danger to

human health and many of the trailers are extremely badly damaged, making

them unusable. Liberty residents are not allowed to leave the camp. They have

no direct access to medical services nor to lawyers. There is a police station and

nearly 150 armed Iraqi forces equipped with machine guns in this very limited

area of half a square kilometre in which 3400 people have to live. Several

surveillance cameras and eavesdropping devices have been installed in the

camp, the output of which has been passed to the Iranian authorities to threaten

the residents and their families.

The Committee urges the Iraqi government to implement the minimum

guarantees demanded by the residents, including the removal of all armed units,

surveillance cameras and eavesdropping devices from the camp; resolving the

infrastructure problem, particularly regarding water, electricity and sewage;

providing direct access to medical services, lawyers and UN monitors; allowing

free movement or at least increasing the camp area; and providing the security

of all residents until they leave Iraq preventing the arrest of even one resident.

We call on Council of Europe member and observer states to respond positively

and rapidly to resettlement demands of Liberty and Ashraf residents.

• Increasing police stations in Liberty and bringing them closer to residential areas

In the afternoon of Monday March 12 and the morning of Tuesday March 13, Iraqi armed forces opened up a 5-meter wide section of Camp Liberty wall and stationed police forces there. These points are at 10-meter distance from living and rest area of the residents. Therefore the number of police posts have been increased to seven. This is a clear threat to the residents and paves the way for attacking the residents.

Earlier on February 27^th, residents of Ashraf and Liberty in separate letters signed by all of the residents to UN Secretary General, his Special Representative and the US Secretary of State had stated their minimum assurances for the transfer of the remaining residents from Ashraf to Liberty, the most important of which was the withdrawal of police and Iraqi armed forces from Liberty 

 

Mr. Ambassador Jeffery; Camp Ashraf residents reject US plan for Camp Ashraf- relocation in Iraq is prelude to our massacre

After the idiotic gossips spread of " Washington's Favorite Terrorists" written by mullahs lobbies, we are now confronting rigid, down to earth and bloody realities of the dangers still facing Camp Ashraf. A humanitarian Catastrophe looms

I am addressing Ambassador Jeffery's good intentions of thinking of a solution for the safety of my friends at Camp Ashraf:
 
Mr. Ambassador :
Thank you for your exceeding concern over our protection at Camp Ashraf, but allow me to express my sentiments to the proposal as bluntly and sincerely as I could :
“We have stated many times, individually and free of will, as well as during the 6 month interrogation by your 6 Intelligence agencies that : if they are to be killed in Iraq, we prefer to die in Ashraf rather than in an unknown location . We have built Ashraf with our bear hands and sweat of our brows and will prefer to die on its land and water it with out blood , as a message to the next generation of those who sincerely desire FREEDOM, DEMOCRACY and PEACE in Iran and the middle east that; We were not the ones to turn on our obligation, we have always been persevered on our ideal : the genuine happiness of our people .
This is what we were given in 2004, in exchange with what we had collected to protect ourselves against the consecutive terrorist attacks of the Iranian mullahs during the past 15 years.
 
A CARD that reads “Protected Persons”! under the 4th Geneva Convention.
This Card was given to us by US forces as a status which was defined, as they said at the time, by International Conventions. As far as we are concerned, International Conventions do not finish as do polices change!. International Convention and the adherent protocols all last till the persons involved have reached their final destination.


My Question is: Have you any comment to say to your obligations to the Convention and the R2P protocols which classifies US attitude to our security issue as illegal and a breach of the R2P protocol?
How is it that Ambassador Jeffrey proposes the idea of relocation inside Iraq, but in regards to crime against humanity on April 8, and the independent, fair, and transparent investigation about that crime which the international community has called for, he keeps silence?

Ambassador Jeffrey’s statements made after the Visit by Iraqi President Jalal Talebani to Iran and his explicit assertion regarding cooperation with the religious fascism ruling Iran for closing Ashraf and meeting with Khamenei. and after the statements made by the clerical regime’s Minister of Intelligence, raises further doubts. Mullahs’ Minister of Intelligence announced on June 25 that: In order to destroy Mojahedin, we are working with the Iraqi officials to determine the fate of Ashraf. On June 29, he said: Iraq has pledged that it will carry out positive measures.

The U.S. approach to those wounded in the April 8 crime has been quite unlawful. Of a total of 345 wounded on April 8, only 39 people (about 27%) were transferred to the general hospital in Baquba or Baghdad and then after incomplete treatment were sent back to Ashraf, and only 7 of them were taken to the American hospital near Ashraf, which seemed more like a measure aimed at the press. despite our many calls on them, the U.S. forces have not taken any steps for treating the wounded. Had the U.S. Embassy and the American forces not denied Ashraf residents of medical assistance, today, at least 6 of the 36 killed would have been alive. Similarly, had medical assistance not been denied of Ashraf residents, 4 patients who passed away in recent months due to medical blockade of Ashraf, would not have died.
Following the massacre at our Camp Ashraf, we expected a full investigation into the pre-planned and well orchestrated attack which took my life, my friends’ and at least 34 other residents at point blank range shots by Maliki forces, leaving 350 of my friends seriously wounded.

How do you expect us to move into a location, not supported at all by any US-UN or independent forces with hardly any form of communication with the outside world and yet with the same forces responsible for our massacre looking over us with weapons at point blank range?

As Maryam Rajavi, our president elect has already reiterated at Rome;

"In order to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe, the United Nations must step in. The U.S. has a legal and moral responsibility to protect the residents of Camp Ashraf" 

Reuters rightly quoted Mrs. Rajavi as saying;

"The proposal would leave the residents open to attack by the same security forces. If such a displacement took place, they would go to a place which is not known to the international community, they would lose their communications and they would be further isolated. It would lay the ground for their massacre."

The follwoing clip is only a reminder of obligations, as a Humanitarian good will gesture for Mr. Ambassador Jeffery.