Wednesday, 23rd November 2011
MEPs urge Ashton to break silence and stop Iraqi concentration camp outrage
MEPs from the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Iraq have called on EU Foreign Affairs representative Baroness Catherine Ashton to do more to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe resulting from the forcible relocation of the Ashraf refugees to a notorious prison facility.
During a meeting yesterday (Tuesday 22 November) with Baroness Ashton’s special envoy on Camp Ashraf, Ambassador Jean De Ruyt, Struan Stevenson MEP, President of the Delegation for Relations with Iraq, revealed a new Iraqi government plan to re-locate forcibly the Ashraf refugees in Baghdad’s notorious al-Mothanna prison – a scene of systemic human rights abuses, including electric shocks, rape, and severe beatings, that outraged the world in April 2010.
The 3,400 residents of Camp Ashraf, in Iraq’s Diyala Province, close to the Iranian border, belong to Iran’s best-organised resistance movement, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK-PMOI), which is committed to non-violent regime change and a democratic, nuclear-free Iranian future with equal rights for women, minorities and religions. Under pressure from the government of Iran, the Iraqi government has consistently tried to force the closure of the camp and the displacement of the refugees. Its most recent attempt, in April 2011, led to the massacre of 36 unarmed refugees and the injury of 300 more by Iraqi government troops.
The revelation of plans to detain the refugees in concentration camp conditions comes in the wake of last week’s notification to the European Parliament by the Iraqi Embassy in Brussels of a 10-point official document stating the Iraqi government’s commitment to clear the camp forcibly by 1 January 2012 (See notes).
Speaking from Brussels, Struan Stevenson MEP, President of the Delegation for Relations with Iraq said:
“I revealed in this meeting the Iraqi government’s sinister plan for relocating the residents of Ashraf to the Al-Mothanna prison in Baghdad and explained to Ambassador De Ruyt that after two massacres we must all now say ‘never again’.
“This filthy concentration camp is what the Iraqis have in mind for the innocent families of Ashraf. This is the prelude to a final massacre. The refugees would be stripped of their phones and cameras so that communication with the outside world will be impossible. They will be at the mercy of a government which regards them as terrorists and which has shown its willingness to murder them indiscriminately in the past.
“I stressed at our meeting that Baroness Ashton and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees must tell the Iraqi government that their many excuses and obstacles to a peaceful outcome for Ashraf have clearly been exposed as a means to prepare for the cold-blooded murder or deportation of the Ashraf residents to Iran, where they face certain torture and execution.
“An alternative, peaceful proposal for the closure of the camp has been drafted and received widespread support from the international community and the Ashraf refugees. The Iraqi government must see sense now and follow that plan.”
Alejo Vidal Quadras, Vice-President of the European Parliament, commented:
"Any attempt to move Ashraf residents inside Iraq is illegal, inhuman and a prelude to massacre. The United Nations Assistance Mission to Iraq must stand firm against the dangerous plans of [Iraqi Prime Minister] Maliki for displacing Ashraf residents.
“Ashraf residents have shown all kinds of flexibility; they have agreed to the European Parliament’s plan to be transferred to third countries, despite their obvious right to remain in Ashraf, where they have lived for the past 25 years; they have filled individual asylum application forms.
“But they are not at all prepared to be forcibly displaced inside Iraq and one should not expect them to volunteer to be slaughtered. If they are forced to be displaced, they will have no other option but to resist”.
Esther de Lange MEP, Vice-President of the European Parliament’s Iraq Delegation, said:
“The European Union must put pressure on Iraq and exert considerable leverage as Iraq's biggest development aid donor and a major trading partner. We must be pro-active by working to extend the Iraqi government’s deadline for the closure of the camp."
ENDS
Notes to editors:
1. Struan Stevenson is a Scottish Conservative MEP for Scotland and President of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Iraq.
2. For further information on the Iraqi government’s 10-point official statement of intent on Camp Ashraf, please click http://www.struanstevenson.com/media/news-release/the_iraqi_governments_declaration_of_war_on_the_un_and_death_warrant_for_as/
3. For more information, please contact:
Peter Smyth
E: peter@indigopr.com
Tel: 0131 554 1146
Mob: 07766 166 637
