NCRI - Having failed in its ploys  against Ashraf City (home to thousands of members of the PMOI) in Iraq one after the other, the clerical regime has mounted its pressure on the families of Ashraf residents. While plots against Ashraf continues, the regime is forcing the families to make their children leave Ashraf by intimidation.

One of the dirty tactics of the mullahs Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) is to put pressure on the families residing in Iran to go to Ashraf city along with MOIS groups and take their children back to Iran.

In another malicious ploy, the MOIS agents tell the families that all PMOI leadership and officials have left Ashraf and the city has reached its end with only their children being left there. The families are told to sign pre-written letters addressed to the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) to ask for the return of their children. By exerting psychological pressure on the families, they try to force them to sign the letters.

In one attempt, the MOIS called in the brother of one of the Ashraf City residents to its office in Fars province to force him and his family to join Nejat Society, an MOIS affiliate, and campaign against Ashraf. In this incident he and his family were threatened to death in order to comply with their request but they refused.

Fearful of growing popular support for the Iranian Resistance and Ashraf city, the regime has taken a step further and is exerting pressure on the families of the supporters of the PMOI outside Iran to dissuade their children from supporting the PMOI and stop their activities.

The Iranian Resistance calls on international human rights and civil rights organisations to condemn pressures exerted on the families of the PMOI members and supporters inside and outside Iran, which is a blatant violation of human rights and the liberties enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international conventions.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
September 25, 2008