Families of Ashraf residents dispatched to Iraq by mullahs’ intelligence but prevented from entering the Camp
NCRI – On the eve of the February 11 massive nationwide uprising, while the Iranian regime remains helpless in confronting the uprising, and while the kangaroo courts sentence families of Ashraf residents to death as mohareb (enemy of God) only because they visited their relatives in the Camp, the mullahs’ Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) with the help of the Iraqi committee tasked with suppression of Ashraf resorted to yet another ridiculous and repetitive ploy planned to increase pressure on Ashraf residents by playing around with their family affections.
On Monday, February 8, a group of five families of Ashraf residents, who had been transferred to Iraq by the MOIS, were taken by the Iraqi committee from Baghdad to the entry gates of Ashraf. The Iraqi forces informed the residents of Ashraf that the family members of the residents wish to see them. But the committee had instructed that the families are not allowed to go inside the Camp and family visits should take place outside Ashraf. The aim of such moves is to wage psychological war and prepare the grounds for suppression of Ashraf residents.
The residents refused to submit to the plot by MOIS and declared that they are not going to accept the inhumane and unlawful conditions imposed under the orders of the Iranian regime. In a letter handed over to the delegation of the United Nations Assistant Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) and the U.S. forces command inside Camp Ashraf, the residents unveiled the joint plot by the MOIS and the Iraqi committee. In their letter they expressed their willingness to meet with their relatives only if they could have them in their own place and home inside Ashraf. They reiterated that they were not prepared to give in to humiliating conditions and meet under the watchful eyes of Iraqi forces and agents of the Iranian regime outside the Camp. They emphasized that they wanted to see their relatives and families inside Ashraf the same way as in the past.
Between 2003 and 2008, families of Ashraf residents from Iran and abroad could travel to Iraq and visit freely their relatives inside the Camp. But, since the beginning of last year, the Iraqi Government, on the order of the clerical regime, only allowed visits for families taken to Iraq by tours organized by the MOIS. The meetings were to take place outside the Camp and the Ashraf residents were pressured in these visits to repent and go back to Iran and engage in smear campaign against Ashraf.
This is while a large number of members of families that visited Ashraf are currently imprisoned, under torture and sentenced to long prison terms. As the uprising intensifies, arrest of family members has taken new dimensions and more have been put on trial and charged with "mohareb" (enemy of God) for meeting with their relatives in Ashraf.
Meanwhile, the mullahs' regime and its Iraqi agents are responding to the logical and humanitarian demands of Ashraf residents for meeting with their family members inside the Camp by blackmail smear campaign, falsely alleging that the PMOI is preventing family visits in Ashraf.
The families, who were brought to Iraq and Ashraf in November 2009, were organized by the MOIS's "Nejat Society" in Esfahan, and MOIS agents in Tehran briefed them before departure. They were coerced to bring out their relatives from Ashraf and return them to Iran otherwise they would be questioned for their failure.
The Iranian Resistance, while emphasizing that the inhumane blockade of Ashraf and turning it into a prison camp constitute a clear violation of International Law and fundamental human rights, calls on the United Nations' Secretary General, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Secretary General’s Special Representative for Iraq, UNAMI, all international human rights organization, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and the commander of American forces in Iraq to adopt urgent measures to end the inhumane and criminal blockade of Ashraf, prevention of family visits in the Camp, entry of reporters, lawyers and international delegations to the Camp.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
February 10, 2010
