Statement no. 3
Iranian regime’s ploys to create crisis in Ashraf
NCRI – Simultaneous with the nationwide uprising against the regime in Iran on February 11, the clerical regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) dispatched a new group of nine members of families of Ashraf residents to Iraq. They were sent from Western Azarbaijan province as part of the regime’s efforts to create crisis in Camp Ashraf. The group was taken to Ashraf by the Iraqi committee responsible for suppression of Ashraf residents but refused to allow the families to enter the Camp to see their children and relatives.
On Monday, February 8, another group of five family members of Ashraf residents were taken to the entrance gate of the Camp but again they were prevented from going in.
On Friday, February 12, in a ridiculous act before the cameras of the Iranian regime’s media, the Iraqi forces brought both groups of families together to the main gates of Ashraf. The families were kept at the premises of the Iraqi battalion outside the Camp. The Iraqi forces intended to set up the stage in a way to pretend that it was the PMOI obstructing families to see their loved ones. The Ashraf residents once again called on the Iraqi forces to unlock the gates to allow their families into the Camp but they refused and reminded them of the ban on family visits inside Ashraf.
Ashraf residents – the children and relatives of those families sent to Iraq – in a letter to representatives of UNAMI have stated that some of their relatives had been to Iraq between 2003 and 2008 to see them in Ashraf and they spent a few days with them in the Camp without any restrictions, but from the time the control of Ashraf has been transferred to the Iraqi forces, the visits by families to Ashraf and meetings in there has been barred. They added that the Iraqi committee responsible for Ashraf had continued to force them to visit their families, who had been dispatched by the MOIS, before TV cameras. This foul psychological war, as they described it, continued over the past year with least respect to the residents’ basic rights. They reiterated that like other Ashraf residents, they had decided on their free will not to play into the hands of the mullahs’ intelligence and therefore, are not prepared to see their families outside Ashraf. They underlined their rights to meet freely with their families and advised the Iraqi committee to recognize their rights and stay away from the inhumane ploys of the Iranian regime against them and their families.
The MOIS is taking advantage of family sentiments of Ashraf residents with the help of the Iraqi committee to impose pressure on them and put them under psychological torture. In the meantime, the kangaroo courts in Iran are trying families of Ashraf residents for only supporting them. Being charged as “mohareb” (enemy of God) these families are sentenced to death or long prison terms.
The Iranian Resistance emphasizes once again that the inhumane blockade of Ashraf and turning it into a prison camp constitute a clear violation of International Law and fundamental human rights and 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 that includes prevention of family visits in the Camp and entry of reporters, lawyers and international delegations to Ashraf.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
February 12, 2010
