NCRI – In the international conference held in Paris on Friday, January 20, 2012 in defense of Ashraf, Lord Maginnis made the following remarks: Click here for video
Thank you Mr. Moderator, and Mrs. Rajavi, platform colleagues, ladies and gentleman, I’m delighted to be here today with such distinguished colleagues from both sides of the Atlantic. I want first of all to extend special thank you to you Madam Rajavi for leading these international efforts and for managing to bring together so many diverse political views under one roof and behind the same cause. Those of us who have spent the greater part of lives in politics, know that this is an enormous task and I am very proud. I am very proud to be part of your great international movement for peace and justice for the people of Iran. Thank you.
Let me begin by expressing my concerns and that of many of colleagues in both houses of the British parliament about recent developments in Iraq. Today I am expressing the views representing the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom that has more than 120 active members in both houses at Westminster and who enjoys the support of over 500 members of Parliament and Peers. Just as I was coming here today, I got a message one of our senior clergy, one of our very senior clergy, Rev John Prichard who is a Bishop of Oxford and he was expressing not only his views, he said I have recently added my voice to that of the archbishops of Wales and of Ireland and many other Bishops from across Britain to warn Mr. António Guterres ,the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, not to fall prey to this trap laid by the regimes of Iran and Iraq. The Archbishop of Ireland is my personal friend and spiritual leader and I can tell you I’ve talked to to him and he is 100% behind you here you today.
I do not want to delay but I just read you one more sentence from the message from the Bishop of Oxford, and he said, “I call on the US government and Secretary Clinton in particular to remove the last obstacle to settling the residents of Ashraf in third countries. It is high time that Washington district court ruling of July 2010 was implemented and that PMOI must be removed from the FTO list.”
With all of you ladies and gentleman, my colleagues and I are angry that as soon as we put behind a dangerous episode regarding the arbitrary deadline for the closure Camp Ashraf, we’ve been confronted with yet another dangerous provocation. It seems that Maliki is determined not to recognize nor to leave any of the rights of the residents of Camp Ashraf un-breached.
Even when the residents of Ashraf were supposed to move to another camp which was the US army base, he has tried to turn it into a prison. Somebody more correctly said a concentration camp by, putting restriction that have no justifications. He is not responding to any reasonable international expectation in respect of the residents, and puts in place every obstacle he can.
Even though, in a modest stance, some of us would say overall inadequate memorandum of understanding, it has been indicated that only residents of Ashraf should safely be moved to Camp Liberty. And I did not know until today that was indeed a tandem to be a concentration camp and I was not interested in what I heard about the ridiculous size.
Even though we have this memorandum of understanding, Nouri Al-Maliki just last week in an interview with the Iranian regime media repeated the false accusations of the Iranian mullahs and said that he has arrest warrants for over 126 of the residents . This means that the Iranian regime demands of him to arrest, in effect the leadership of the camp, and he is willingly capitulating and ready to meet this dubious demand. There is only reason for this: he sees the determination of the residents of Camp Ashraf, as the most serious opposition to the oppressive regime that is the Iranian mullahs. And of course he is now depending on the Iranian mullahs to sustain his own very dubious presidency in Iraq.
Maliki is radiating new signals each day to show he does not have the will to stand against the demands of the mullahs ruling Iran. And he cannot, I suppose he dare not ambulate his animosity towards the residents of camp Ashraf for that reason. Today we know that any member of them understanding that he puts his hand to with the international community about Ashraf. He then has to prove to the Mullahs by his perverse actions he assures them that his signature is never intended as something as a substantial expressional good will or a commitment to do what is honorable.
The international community must now draw its own conclusions. There has been so far from the international community too much equivocation. It will not obtain a positive result with Maliki to resolve the Ashraf crisis unless the united nation sends them a clear message and they must act now decisively. Only if the United Nations from this platform today can pick up that message and meet its obligations, will we have any hope that the people of Camp Ashraf will not suffer a great deal more that they have to date.
Let me concentrate on that point, today we need and expect the United Nations High Commissioner for refugees to tell, and in non-equivocal terms, Nouri Al-Maliki that he cannot use the pretext of Iraqi sovereignty to bully us. That he cannot imprison 3400 defenseless asylum seekers. That the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has recognized those rights associated with the clearly declared status of camp Ashraf residents. Nouri Al-Maliki has no justification for trampling on their rights for preventing them from taking their legal assets or for carrying out illegal action against them in the name of Iraqi sovereignty. It is Nouri-Al-Maliki, not the residents of Camp Ashraf or the presence of the residents of Camp Ashraf, who demeans that sovereignty by his, Nouri-Al-Maliki’s, duplicity.
So, if I read what my colleagues have said here today. We need, we demand that the High Commissioner tell Maliki that the United Nations cannot tolerate any deliberate delays in carrying out the UNCHR process until camp liberty is ready and adequate. The UNHCR must insist on their international obligations to bring part of camp Ashraf under its control and start interviewing the residents to be sent to third countries. This assurance we expect to hear from the high commissioner not next week, not tomorrow, but right now today.
I’ll conclude by saying this: as a member of the British Parliament and as a member of the British committee for Iran freedom, I assure you that we demand our government accepts some of those refugees and opens the door especially to sick patients. This what the United Nations Secretary General has demanded from all UN Member States. We think that all governments and first and foremost my government should do that.
I look for my United States colleagues on the platform to bend Mrs. Clinton’s ear so that she does listen and so that she takes appropriate, I was going to say timely it is now untimely, but at least let her take action now.
Ladies and gentlemen, I promise that the British parliamentary committee for Iranian freedom is fully dedicated and committed. And one other thing, David Phillips you volunteered general to go to Camp Ashraf. If you can persuade Mrs. Clinton and you want to internationalize it, I will come with you.
