NCRI – The Iranian refugees’ sit-in outside the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva which has been going on for a month, has attracted many political figures who came here to support them and the media. Radio Cité, a Genevan radio, interviewed a key international jurist on this subject, Marc Henzelin:
Today, the Iranian refugees demonstrated outside the UNHCR, the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees. Damien Dupont met a Genevan personality on the spot.
Radio Cité: Marc Henzelin, you are the legal adviser of these Iranian exiles. They have been demonstrating for a month outside the UNHCR, on what grounds?
Marc Henzelin: For a very obvious reason. There are 4000 members of this movement in Iraq and Iran is putting a lot of pressure to have these people sent back in Iran where they would obviously be ill-treated. Iran’s past attitude towards this movement is quite dubious. They have already killed dozens of thousands of them in prisons and executed them in the most appalling ways. Therefore we can imagine what would happen if Iraq gave in to Iranian pressure and sent them back to Iran.
Radio Cité: What are the exiles’ claims?
MH: They first have political claims, they want Iran to become a democratic country, that it change from theocracy to a civil regime which respects human rights and which in fact becomes a little westernized. This is a claim that can be well understood in Europe. And beyond this political general claim relating to the Iranian constitution and the Iranian political regime, they have claims concerning the situation in Iraq. They try to calm things down in Iraq, to make sure that communities live together, and obviously, they have more personal concerns as they do not want to be expelled to Iran where their fate would be extremely hard.
Radio Cité: After a month of demonstration outside the UNHCR, has their situation evolved?
MH: I think that this situation can only evolved through the years. Remember the apartheid regime in South Africa, this regime lasted dozens of years before it finally fell. In my opinion, it is a long-term struggle and these people here are ready to fight for very long years.
Radio Cité: And what is your role?
HM: I am their lawyer, their legal adviser. These last three years I have been to Iraq a dozen times to represent them. My role obvisouly is exclusively judicial and not political. I am not Iranian, even though I support them with all my heart with their claims. I remain a lawyer and a jurist.
