U.S. officials testified before the House Foreign Affairs Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee last week that efforts to peacefully resolve the standoff are being rebuffed by MEK aka MKO/PMOI leadership. U.S. Special Adviser on Camp Ashraf Daniel Fried said MEK leadership has impeded a refugee resettlement process and interfered with the UN’s ability to conduct interviews with individuals at the encampment.
The MEK fled Iran in the mid-1980s and took up arms with Saddam Hussein in the fight against Iran; the group has also been linked to Hussein’s violent suppression of Iraqi Shiites and Kurds, according to the Council on Foreign Relations…The Obama administration has won Iraqi agreement for a plan that could avoid these outcomes. Overseen by the U.N. envoy to Iraq, it calls for the MEK members to be moved to the United States’ former Camp Liberty base..
The ICRC is prepared to visit anyone from Camp Ashraf whom the Iraqi authorities may detain. We would assess their conditions of detention and treatment, and would help them restore contact with their relatives, through Red Cross messages for instance. The ICRC is already making regular visits to detainees in Iraq, and we would assist any detained persons from Ashraf Camp in the same way. In 2009, the ICRC visited 36 Ashraf residents detained by the Iraqi authorities. ..
.. they are standing beside the grave of their former torturer. Both men were sent to Abu Ghraib political prison by Massoud Rajavi after extensive imprisonment, isolation and torture inside the MEK’s own prisons failed to force them to submit to Rajavi. Rafi’ee Nejad frequently visited them even when they were in Abu Ghraib. They were released during the fall of Saddam in 2003. There were over 50 registered ex-MEK prisoners in Abu Ghraib ..
“The residents of Camp Ashraf (the Camp of New Iraq) have caused a great deal of controversy here (Iraq) and in the United States. I would like to see this complex issue resolved peacefully and with the help of the UN.””The camp’s residents are classified as a terrorist organization by many countries and thus have no legal basis to remain in Iraq,”Maliki added…”No country would accept the presence of foreign insurgents on its soil, but we will work hard to find a peaceful solution
The camp Ashraf’s residents are classified as a terrorist organization by many countries and thus have no legal basis to remain in Iraq. No country would accept the presence of foreign insurgents on its soil, but we will work hard to find a peaceful solution that upholds the international values of human rights.
“In order to find a durable solution for the camp residents, it is essential that potential third countries indicate their willingness to receive them for resettlement,” Ban said. Iraq’s UN ambassador, Hamid al-Bayati, also called for international help to close the camp. “I would like to assure the Security Council that my government doesn’t want to force anybody to go back to Iran,” he said. But Bayati said the camp residents were preventing Iraqi forces …
Both sides should allow the more than 3,200 Iranians at Camp Ashraf, in Iraq, to move to a protected location under UN supervision before the Iraqi government’s December 31, 2011 deadline for closing the camp, Human Rights Watch said. And both should allow the UN refugee agency sufficient time to conduct private and confidential interviews with each person to assess their refugee claims. “With each tick of the clock, the danger to camp residents grows..
Massoud Khodabandeh, from Middle East Strategy Consultants introduced the book ‘The Life of Camp Ashraf – Mojahedin-e Khalq Victims of Many Masters’ to the Conference. The book places the MEK in the context of its foreign ownership and concludes that these owners have invested heavily in the MEK’s ability to commit acts of violence and terrorism, and that this is the reason for western resistance to closing the camp..
State of Law MP Ali al-Shalah said that there are moves to close anti-Iranian Ashraf Camp through the Iraqi foreign ministry, which is trying to find a haven for them in European countries.Shalah told Aswat al-Iraq that his bloc”is trying to reach a peaceful and humanitarian solution to Ashraf Camp question”, calling”western European countries to extend their assistance to finalize this question”.