Letter to António Guterres UNHCR from former members in Eastern Azarbaijan province in Iran
Honorable António Guterres UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Geneva
As your Excellency are aware, Camp Liberty in Baghdad, the temporary camp for nearly three thousand members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) subjected Thursday night 26 December 2013 to a terrorist attack by rockets and mortars. According to PMOI this attack caused death of 4 of the camp residents and wounding 71 others, many of them in critical condition.
The PMOI has published the names and photographs of the killed, but not the names of the wounded.
We, the undersigned, as a group of former members of PMOI in Eastern Azarbijan province (Northwest of Iran), express our support for the request of the families of the residents of Camp Liberty to ask your honor, as UN High Commissioner for Refugees and international authority are responsible to solve this issue, as well as the competent international bodies, especially the International Committee of the Red Cross and its office in Iraq to obligate the leadership of the PMOI to announce the names of the wounded residents in this incident by any appropriate means, such as informing the families or to allow the wounded to contact or meet their families because according to international humanitarian laws and basic principles of human rights, they are worried about the health and status of their relatives residing in the refugee camp.
We believe that lifting the cultic and organizational restrictions are the basic and fundamental way to liberate captive members in Iraq, from an organization that has known as a reactionary cult with dictatorial internal relations, as has been emphasized in recent UNAMI report for the first half year of 2013, where indicates: “UNAMI continuing concerns about human rights abuses committed by the PMOI/MeK leadership within Camp Hurriya against the residents….The PMOI/MeK, which has a hierarchical and authoritarian structure, imposes a number of severe restrictions on the residents’ rights, including the right of freedom of movement within the Camp and the right to leave the organization, the free right of association, along with restrictions on contacts with family members (including those residing in Camp Hurriya), on access to basic communications, and on access to medical care and treatment.”
We also announce our support for the request of a group of families of the residents of Camp Liberty to speed up the transfer of the residents from Iraq, where there are daily killings of many innocent people in terrorist incidents or in bloody sectarian clashes, to the third countries specially the sick and wounded, while nearly third of them have documents of residency or asylum in European countries or North America.
We join these families to call international bodies, especially the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to put their utmost efforts to urge the member states towards resettling the residents to the third countries as soon as possible.
We would like to express our deep appreciation and gratitude in advance for your efforts in this regard, and informing the families about the fate and status of their relatives in Camp Liberty.
a group of former members of PMOI in Eastern Azarbijan province (Northwest of Iran)
27 January 2014
Signatories:
1. Sirous Ghazanfari
2. Maseoud Taghipouryan
3. Mohammadreza Mobin
4. Akbar khabare
5. Hosen Hemati
6. Ahmad Hosenzade
7. Ahad Rsolpour
8. Karam Kheiri
9. Ali Ghanbarzade
10. Abdolahe Nikbakht tabrizi
11. Ali Amani
12. Alah Verdi Rsolzade
13. Shahryar Samade
14. Saeid pakdel
15. Hedar Abolhasani
16. Nader Chap Chap
17. Alireza Moghadami chbcghloei
18. Hamid Rastegari
19. Jaefar Fraj pour andbili
20. Akbar Dolt negad
21. Jelal Salmani
22. Habibe Monesi ghramlki
23. Jamshid Nazari
24. Mohammad javad Asadi
25. Esmaeil Aghapour
26. Mehdi Pourghasem
27. Reza Shams
A copy to:
– Secretary- General of the United Nations, Mr. Ban Ki-moon – New York
– Mrs. Jane Holl Lute UNSG adviser for relocation of Camp Liberty residents to third countries.
– UN High Commissioner for Human Rights at the United Nations, Ms Nawi. Pillay – Geneva
– the Special Representative of the Secretary- General of the United Nations in Iraq, Mr. Nikola Mladenov
– Chairman of the human rights monitoring in the UNAMI in Iraq, Mr. Ashouri
– Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, in Iraq
– Ashraf – Liberty Project Office in the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the United Nations in Camp Liberty – Mr. Ahmed Al-Tamimi
– The International Committee of the Red Cross
– Office of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Baghdad
– Office of the Prime Minister of Iraq
– Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights
– Amnesty International
– Human Rights
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