Mohammad Ali Tatayee was one of the hostages wounded and tortured during the massacre at Ashraf in 2009
On Tuesday June 26th, after three years of pain and suffering under a state of siege, Mr. Mohammad Ali Tatayee,
born in 1954, a political refugee in England and another one of the wounded residents and hostages of the July 2009 massacre at Ashraf, passed away following brain surgery at the Ba’quba hospital located in the capital of the Dyala Province in Iraq. He is the 13th victim of the criminal attack against Ashraf in July of 2009.
Tatayee was one of the 36 hostages who were tortured at the dungeon near the base of the Iraqi brigade under the command of Colonel Sadeq Muhammad Kazim. They were subsequently transferred to other prisons in Khalis and Baghdad and were on hunger strike for 72 days, seven of which spent on dry hunger strike. Tatayee and the other hostages returned to Ashraf on October 7, 2009 after suffering severe physical injuries. (Pictures of the dungeon and hostages on hunger strike at the intelligence prison in Baghdad is attached.)
This is the Ashraf and Liberty residents’ third fatality in the past two weeks which is directly linked to the inhumane four-year blockade imposed by the Iraqi government and lack of access to timely and effective medical treatment.
Quoting Iraqi Prime Minister’s Advisor George Bakus, Mr. Martin Kobler wrote to the representative of the residents in his letter of February 24, 2012: ” According to Memorandum of Understanding, the Government of Iraq has the responsibility for the welfare of the residents. The Government of Iraq has the obligation to provide healthcare for the residents of the camp in accordance with the law, in a place where residents can have quick access to doctors”.
But in practice, such medical services are absolutely inaccessible to the residents. Undoubtedly, should the residents had unfettered access to the needed and appropriate medical services including access to the hospital and specialized physicians in Erbil with the possibility of accompanying their physician at Ashraf with two around-the-clock nurses, many of such fatalities could have been prevented. Since November of 2009, PMOI had requested UNAMI to transfer Tatayee and many other residents who were severely injured to Europe for treatment.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
June 26, 2012
