The fate of Camp Ashraf is one of the main unresolved issues left over after U.S. forces withdrew from Iraq this month. Residents of the camp have long said they fear for their safety at the hands of Iraqi authorities without U.S. protection…The leader of the group said on Tuesday it would agree to a United Nations plan to move residents of a dissident camp in Iraq to a new location, depending on certain conditions and guarantees…
U.S. officials fear that unless MEK leader Maryam Rajavi gives her approval, there will be a bloodbath at Camp Ashraf, an MEK base 56 kilometers north of Baghdad that Iraqi leaders insist must close by Dec. 31. There are particular concerns that MEK members will clash with Iraqi security forces or commit mass suicide.. Experts on the MEK accuse its leaders of holding its own members hostage to efforts to get the organisation removed from the U.S. State Department’s list of FTOs.
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 ..
“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..
The Rajavis, meanwhile, have left the residents to the camp. Maryam resides comfortably in Paris, and Massoud is in hiding. What reason, then, for the continued existence of Camp Ashraf? Why do the Rajavis hang onto their followers in their prison-like enclave, even with the deadline fast approaching? They understand well that without the camp, the MEK aka MKO/PMOI would lose its legitimacy, and so, therefore, would the Rajavis.
The MEK is designated as a terrorist organisation by Iraq based on its activities in their country against their citizens – the MEK has killed 25,000 Iraqi civilians over two decades. In contrast, the EU does not regard the MEK as a terrorist entity. This should make it possible for residents of Camp Ashraf – in addition to those who already have citizen or residency rights – to be brought to Europe as refugees under the auspices of the UNHCR…
On Wednesday, October 19th, a number of family members of Ashraf residents from Gilan joined other families picketing in front of Camp Ashraf in the hope of visiting their loved ones kept by force in the camp, in a free atmosphere without the presence of the cult officials.Nejat Society Gilan branch wishes good luck for these people who have long been waiting for such an opportunity,…