UN Human Rights Council Speaks out on Camp Ashraf

Relief Web Site

September 16, 2009

Several speakers drew the attention of the Council to the situation in Ashraf Camp and requested a series of measures from the United Nations and the Iraqi and United States Governments. The Council and the international human rights system were urged to move beyond simple expressions of dismay at violations and to take credible steps to study and address the institutional failings that were at the root of human rights abuse and impunity cycles.

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CHARLOTTE PETTERSSON, of Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, on behalf of Movement against Racism and for Friendship among Peoples, drew the attention of the Council to the particular situation of the Iranian citizens living in Ashraf camps, who had become the target of severe violations of human and humanitarian rights. The crack down on the residents had resulted in 11 deaths and over 500 wounded. The Mouvement Contre le Racisme et pour L'amitié Entre les Peoples asked the High Commissioner what steps had been taken in that regard and urged her Office to provide a monitoring presence in the camp, in the view of the threats of further violations by the Iraqi Government.

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ORETTA BANDETTINI DI POGGIO, of France Libertés – Fondation Danielle Mitterrand, on behalf of Movement against Racism and for Friendship among Peoples, deplored that the United States had not assumed their legal responsibility to protect the inhabitants of the Ashraf camp. They further requested the Government of Iraq to protect the refugees, guarantee their fundamental rights and abstain from any action that might endanger their lives or security. France Libertés: Fondation Danielle Mitterrand requested the United Nations to assure the respect of rights as defined by the Fourth Geneva Convention and to establish a permanent delegation in the camp. The United States needed to provide the protection to the delegation to enable them to implement their mission.

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ELI FARHAM, of Women's Human Rights International Association, said the High Commissioner had rightly expressed concern about another global trend, that of the protection of civilians in situations of armed conflict. The Women's Human Rights International Association called on the High Commissioner to ask for serious international action regarding the 2009 attack by Iraqi forces on the Ashraf camp which left 10 dead and 500 injured. This was in clear violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Following this event, 36 captives were on hunger strike.

 

Hunger Strikers Press for Iraq ’s Release of Iranian Exiles

By Brian Knowlton

The New York Times

September  19, 2009

WASHINGTON — Wednesday was the 50th day of their hunger strike, but Hamid Goudarzi, 26, and his fellow Iranian-immigrant protesters here swore they would never give up. “I’m getting weaker every day,” said Mr. Goudarzi, who gave up his job in San Antonio to join the protest. “But I’m here to the end.”

He is among two dozen hunger strikers encamped a stone’s throw from the White House to protest the deaths in Iraq of at least six members of the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran, an exile group based in Iraq and committed to the overthrow of the Islamic revolutionary government in Tehran. Similar sympathy strikes are under way in Ottawa , London , Berlin , Stockholm and The Hague .

In addition to those killed, hundreds of other members of the exile group were wounded when Iraqi forces, newly empowered by the pullback of American combat troops, tried to forcibly take over their camp, Ashraf, north of Baghdad, at the end of July. The group fears mistreatment and expulsion at the hands of the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government, which has many ties to Iran .

The protesters are calling for the resumption of American protection of the camp until a United Nations presence can be arranged and for the release of 36 members who have been detained since the clash at Camp Ashraf , which is home to about 3,400 people.

A local Iraqi court has ordered the detainees’ release, but the government has appealed.

So far, the pleas from the protesters in Washington have elicited little reaction from the White House. But then the People’s Mujahedeen, also known as the M.E.K. and Mujahedeen Khalq, has a complicated history and still-disputed connections to enemies of the United States .

It remains on the State Department list of foreign terrorist groups (though Britain and the European Union have dropped that designation); it was linked to the assassinations of senior Iranian figures; it has been called “far left” and “cultlike” by analysts; and at one time it had friendly relations with Saddam Hussein, who provided space for its camp when the exiles — enemies of his enemy — needed a home.

The group’s defenders say its thinking has evolved as it has sought wider acceptance. It renounced violent tactics in 2001. In 2003, at the United States ’ urging, it proclaimed neutrality in the Iraq war and turned over its weapons to American troops. Its members were declared by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in 2004 to be “protected persons” under the Fourth Geneva Convention, and now it is pressing to be dropped from the United States terrorist list.

“Times have changed; we’ve grown up,” said Ali Safavi, a spokesman.

Analysts say the Obama administration is torn. The group’s fierce opposition to the Tehran government and its help in providing intelligence about the Iranian nuclear program have made it useful to those in the administration seeking to contain that threat, but awkward for those seeking dialogue and reconciliation with Iran.

“This is not a black-and-white situation,” said Jon B. Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington .

“There’ve long been people in the U.S. government who thought the M.E.K. was useful as a way to put pressure on the Iranian government,” said Mr. Alterman, a former senior policy planner at the State Department. “And there are people who’ve said these are not the kinds of people we should be hanging out with.”

Asked about the group this week, a White House spokesman, Tommy Vietor, said, “The U.S. government continues to urge the government of Iraq to honor its public commitments to treat the M.E.K. humanely and in accordance with Iraqi and international law.”

“We are working with international organizations to help address the difficult situation of this group in Iraq ,” he said. “We empathize with and respect the concerns that many have expressed for their friends and loved ones in Iraq .

Despite the administration’s stance, the group has garnered support from some of the most staunch conservatives in Congress, and some liberals.

The Iranians, said one of the conservatives, Representative Dana Rohrabacher, Republican of California, were “an imperfect group.” But, he added in a phone interview, “My belief is that we should be helping anybody who’s dedicated to bringing down the mullah regime in Iran .”

Representative Ted Poe, a Texas Republican, said, “The United States has a moral and legal obligation to protect these Iranian political dissidents and Camp Ashraf .”

Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee, a Texas Democrat, has expressed particular concern about the welfare of the estimated 1,000 women at Camp Ashraf .

But many American officials remain deeply skeptical of the group, including the claims that the 36 detainees in Iraq are on their own serious hunger strike.

The protesters in Washington say they are limiting themselves to tea, water, sugar and Gatorade. Dr. Gary Morsch, 58, an Army Reserve doctor who served at Camp Ashraf in 2004 — and expresses sympathy for the Iranians’ cause — said that situation was precarious. A half-dozen have required hospital treatment.

 

The great Iranian cover-up: mannequins told to lose curves and wear hijabs

By Adrian Blomfield in Jerusalem

The UK Telegraphy

September 23, 2009

Iranian police have told shopkeepers that female mannequins must lose their feminine curves and be dressed in the hijab, the headscarf worn by devout Muslim women.

An edict was issued requiring mannequins to be dressed with greater modesty.

"Using unusual mannequins exposing the body curves and with the heads without hijabs are prohibited to be used in the shops," the official Iranian news agency IRNA quoted the edict, issued by the country's moral security police, as saying.

The new rules also prohibit men from selling women's underwear and forbid the display of men's ties and bow ties, seen as Western affectation, in shop windows and on shelves.

A strict dress code has been imposed on the Iranian people since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, their president, came to power in 2005.

Women are forbidden from wearing tight-fitting trousers, while there are restrictions on the amount of hair gel men can use.

Iran shut down at least 20 barber shops in 2007 for displaying signs of pro-western decadence after the morality police discovered they offered an eyebrow-plucking and make-up service for men.

But this is the first time the strictures have been extended to inanimate objects.

It is unclear what sanctions shopkeepers who fall afoul of the new guidelines will face.

Mobile police units patrol the city looking for signs of inappropriate western dress. Although offenders are usually only cautioned, there have been calls for women who fall foul of the dress code to be exiled to remote parts of the country.

 

ICLW warns against mullahs' plots to displace and massacre Ashraf residents       

October 8 2009 

Press release

Formation of the International Committee of Lawyers in support of 1,000 Women in Ashraf was announced Thursday in a press conference in Paris . The conference warned against imminent threats to Camp Ashraf residents, particularly plans for their displacement as a prelude to massacre them.. They reiterated that in any forcible displacement, the prime victims will be women.

The lawyers call for immediate intervention of the European Union, the United States and the United Nations to guarantee the rights of Ashraf residents, particularly women, in accordance with Geneva conventions and to prevent their displacement as a ploy to pave the way for a humanitarian catastrophe.

Members of the committee comprised of distinguished women lawyers from France , Britain , Italy and Scandinavian countries strongly condemn the Iraqi Government for preventing them from meeting their clients, the 1,000 women residing in Ashraf, and establish contacts with them for the past few months.

They stress that their fundamental rights under the Fourth Geneva Convention, as stipulated in the European Parliament resolution on April 24, 2009, to be acknowledged and a U.N. monitoring team to be deployed in Ashraf to prevent the repeat of attack and violence against the residents or their forcible displacement. The committee reiterates that if the rights of its clients are violated, they will pursue their case through competent international courts.

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, in a message to the conference said that the attack on Camp Ashraf was planned and coordinated by the clerical regime in Iran . Nationwide uprisings in the past three months have deeply shaken and destabilized the regime, thus, it desperately needs to suppress its opposition. The assailant forces are still inside the camp and they have the motive to repeat the attack.

She warned that the forces in their attacks on the residents of Ashraf repeatedly threatened women with rape. The fate of 36 Ashraf residents taken hostage by force is extremely alarming. The attackers abducted them in Ashraf by force and tortured them. This happened to them while they were recognized as Protected Persons. Although they were released on Wednesday after 72 days of hunger strike, but recurrence of this kind of criminal forcible displacement must not be allowed, Mrs. Rajavi stressed.

Camp Ashraf is home of 3500 members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), an opposition movement to the current regime. On 27 and 28th of July Ashraf was the target of a violent attack by Iraqis forces, in which 11 residents were killed and 500 injured. In this attack, the female residents were threatened with sexual assault and rape. This makes it more imperative for the lawyers to contact and meet with the clients in order to defend them.

 

UN High Commissioner on Human Rights condemns Iran for juvenile executions

Press Release

October 13, 2009

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said Tuesday she was deeply dismayed to hear that another juvenile offender was executed in the Islamic Republic of Iran on Sunday, and called for changes to Iranian law and practice “to end execution of juvenile offenders once and for all.”

She also said she had serious concerns about the death sentences recently handed down to three individuals for their involvement in the protests that took place after Iran ’s recent Presidential election.

Behnoud Shojaie, who was executed on Sunday, had been convicted of the murder of another boy in a street fight when both were 17 years old. Both the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and UN special rapporteurs had raised his case with the Iranian authorities, reminding them of their international obligation not to execute juveniles.

Iran is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, both of which prohibit the death penalty for juvenile offenders.

The High Commissioner had welcomed indications that the Iranian judiciary was encouraging victims’ families to reach private settlements in such cases. The former head of the judiciary had previously agreed to suspend Shojaie's death sentence, in order to give the victim's family a chance to pardon him under Islamic Shariah law.

A new draft juvenile justice law, which is currently being considered by the Iranian legislature, provides a valuable opportunity to end the execution of juvenile offenders.

“This latest execution shows there are no guarantees of clemency for juveniles until Iran changes its law and practice to end execution of juvenile offenders once and for all,” Pillay said. “It is the state’s responsibility to stop these executions, not a family’s prerogative.”

The High Commissioner also raised concern over Iranian state news agency reports that three people have been sentenced to death in relation to protest activities following the recent Presidential elections. Reportedly, the verdicts must be confirmed by a higher court.

“Under international law, the death penalty can only be applied when very strict conditions are met, for example only in respect of the most serious crimes and only after scrupulously fair trials,” the High Commissioner noted. The UN human rights mechanisms have held the view that the imposition of the death penalty for crimes that do not result in loss of life is contrary to the ICCPR. “There are also major concerns about the way the recent trials of opposition activists were conducted, and I hope these judgments will be reviewed carefully by the higher courts,” Pillay said.

Beyond the question of legality of the death penalty under international law, the High Commissioner reiterated that she is opposed to the death penalty in all circumstances, and urged governments to act on the UN General Assembly's February 2008 Resolution which called on all states “to establish a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty.”