NCRI – Despite a prior agreement for five Ashraf residents with terminal illness including cancer, to be transferred to Baghdad for specialist treatment, the Iraqi Prime Ministerial Committee to Suppress Ashraf, in an inhumane act on Sunday, July 10, morning prevented interpreters and aides to the patients from traveling with them.
Iraqi authorities, including the representative of the Diyala Health Office in Ashraf, reiterated that they lacked any authority and were obliged to carry out the orders of the Committee.
As a result of attempts by Ashraf residents, with a delay of several hours, Iraqi forces permitted the male patients and their interpreters to go to Baghdad but prevented the travel of female patient and her aide. By the time the male patients arrived in Baghdad, the hospital was closed and special treatment was not possible, and they had to return to Ashraf with no result.
This is not the first time that the Committee that has been set up in Iraqi Prime Minister's Office to suppress Ashraf residents, in practice has prevented the transfer of patients to Baghdad by preventing interpreters and aides to accompany the patients.
Imposing cruel medical restrictions by Iraqi government is a part of the inhumane siege imposed on Ashraf beginning at the start of 2009 following the transfer of protection to Iraqi forces. Due to the restrictions imposed over the past 18 months, many of the patients, who could have been cured fully in the initial phase of their illness if they had been allowed proper treatment, are in critical condition today.
The Iranian Resistance calls on the United Nations Secretary General, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Iraq and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights as well as U.S. officials and commanders and all human rights organisations to pay attention to the continued suppression and pressures imposed on Ashraf residents and further calls for urgent measures to bring an end to this cruel siege.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
July 12, 2010
