Ashraf attacked – Statement 36
NCRI – On Wednesday night, July 29, 2009, Hassan Salman, the Head of Iraq’s Information Network, explicitly acknowledged in an interview with Aljazeera TV channel that the suppressive operations by the Iraqi forces in Ashraf are carried out with the supervision and awareness of Nuri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister.
An hour later, Nuri al-Maliki mimicked the shameful modus operandi of the televised shows of the religious fascism ruling Iran. In order to cover up his crimes against humanity yesterday in Ashraf, he sent the henchman of Ashraf residents, Gen. Damouk Shemri, the Commander of the Diyala Police, as well as a well-known agent of the Iranian regime’s embassy in Baghdad, Adnan Seraj, to the state-run TV to copy the clerical regime in Iran by spewing lies against the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) and turning the reality of crimes in Ashraf upside down.
The lies reached a point where even the explosions north of Paris were linked to the PMOI. They tried to make it seem like not even a single bullet was fired in Ashraf against the residents and perhaps the attacks of yesterday and today with guns, daggers, sonic grenades, and setting fire to vehicles were all done by the PMOI itself while the Iraqi forces were somehow injured, such that some of them are on the brink of death.
At the same time, neither the henchman of Ashraf nor the agent of the regime’s embassy, and not even the host of the TV program, bothered to answer the fundamental question that, if they are really telling the truth then why would they refuse entry to journalists, lawyers, and international human rights organizations so that they could gather their own independent reports from facts on the ground? Meanwhile they also overlooked Khamenei’s directive on February 28 to the Iraqi government to suppress the PMOI.
More importantly, Adnan Seraj, at the behest of the Iranian regime’s embassy in Baghdad, refused the statement issued by the President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, beforehand. The statement expressed the willingness Ashraf residents to return to Iran if certain conditions were met. Seraj declared that neither the Iranian regime nor the Iraqi government will ever accept the PMOI conditions for returning to their homeland.
The conditions are simple and clear, including protection from torture and hanging and having freedom of speech, and are affirmed by the International Committee of Jurists in Defence of Ashraf, made up of 8,500 jurists, and the In Search of Justice international committee, which is made up of more than 2,000 parliamentarians in Europe and North America.
In the ridiculous TV show whose producers did not see a need in making even a single phone call to inquire about the views and positions of the National Council of Resistance of Iran in Paris, two things were made plain: Fear of the crimes against humanity in Ashraf being exposed; And that in their view, the only option for the PMOI in Ashraf is to accept the “pardon” of the Iranian regime, which means nothing but expression of submission to the religious fascism.
This level of lies and indecency, which has been modeled after Khamenei and Ahmadinejad, takes place at a time when pictures and videos of killing Ashraf residents by Iraqi forces have been brought to the world’s attention, sparking condemnations from Amnesty International and 25 other human rights organizations and parliamentary committees across the globe. Additionally, Iranians have staged protests in 14 countries to express their profound abhorrence towards the killings.
Moreover, 50 Iraqi parliamentarians from 7 different political blocks in the Iraqi Parliament have written a letter to the UN Secretary General in regards to Ashraf, stressing that, “There is no reason to use force or place a siege in an area where its occupants are peaceful. The exertion of any kind of pressure or displacement of these refugees would constitute a violation of International Humanitarian Law.”
The Iraqi parliamentarians added in their letter to the Secretary General that, “We view as a determining factor your personal intervention and the international community’s intervention to lift the siege, ensure respect for international law and determine a solution that will ensure the rights of Ashraf residents, especially in circumstances where there is an international common ground for confronting the suppression of the Iranian people.”
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
July 29, 2009
