International call to save 36 hostages
NCRI – In a new foul ploy, the Iraqi Prime Minister’s office, at the request of the religious fascism ruling Iran, is preventing the release of 36 Camp Ashraf residents. They were abducted during an attack on the Camp in late July. This is while, they are on their 38th day of hunger strike and a judge at the court of city of Khalis had ordered their release in a verdict issued on August 24, 2009.
A group of officers at the Iraqi Interior Ministry have been assigned to file a complaint against these 36 hostages alleging that they had entered the country illegally. By opening up a new mock court proceeding, they intend to make the hostages, who are already in serious conditions as a result of their hunger strike, to face death.
Last week, following the decision by the judge in Khallis court to release the 36 hostages, the National Council of Resistance of Iran announced that the Iranian regime’s embassy in Baghdad and those who planned the criminal attack on Ashraf have been preventing their release.
According to information received, Manouchehr Mottaki, mullahs’ Foreign Minister, in his recent visit to Iraq emphasized that the 36 hostages should not be released and asked Kazemi Qomi, Tehran’s ambassador to Baghdad and a veteran member of the terrorist Quds Force, to make necessary arrangements to put pressure on these individuals to break them down and convince them not to want to go back to Camp Ashraf.
Hossein Sarv-Azad, one of the 36 hostages who had spent nine years in mullahs’ jails as a political prisoner and now on hunger strike, fainted yesterday and fell down while he was trying to stand up. Police had to take him to the hospital in Khalis.
The 36 individuals entered Iraq lawfully during the past 23 years under the government at the time. They held visas and official permissions to remain in Iraq over the years.
Furthermore, every single one of them have been recognized as ‘Protected Person’ under the Fourth Geneva Convention by the U.S. Government and the Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-I) and were issued with the Protected Person’s I.D. cards in 2004.
The illegal abduction and detention of the Protected Persons is considered as crime against humanity.
The Iraqi Prime Minister is directly responsible for these unlawful actions and any harm done to these hostages, thus, liable for prosecution in international courts.
The Iranian Resistance calls on the U.S. government, MNF-I, United Nations Secretary General, U.N. Security Council, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, and all human rights organizations, to act urgently to save the lives of these 36 hostages and secure their release.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
September 3, 2009
