NCRI – On Tuesday, October 2, a meeting in honor of two Iraqi parliamentarians was held at the European Parliament in Brussels, by the Friends of a Free Iran. Mr. Mohammad Hossein Al-Awaz, member of the Security and Defense Committee and Mr. Falah Hassan Zeidan, member of the Labor and Services Committee of the Iraqi Parliament spoke on the Iranian regime’s meddling in Iraq.
The meeting started with one minute of silence called by Mr. Paulo Casaca, joint Chair of the Friends of a Free Iran as a sign of respect for victims of Iranian regime’s terrorism in Iraq, particularly those in Diyala Province.
As the first speaker, Mr. Al-Awaz said, “Our country is not just occupied by Americans but also by the Iranian regime and its Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). The regime is helping Shiite militia forces on one hand and the Al-Qaeda through Syria on the other. Dozens of corpses appear on streets of Baghdad everyday. Dozens more are found in other cities like Mosul and Basra. Most of them are murdered by militia forces backed by the clerical regime. It is trying to create division and animosity among Shiite and Sunni Muslims and extend its fundamentalist rule to Iraq.”
Mr. Zeidan also referred to the Iranian regime’s interferences in Iraq and said, “We never had any problems among Shiite and Sunni Muslims in Iraq but due to the Iranian regime’s meddling there are now conflicts between various ethnic and religious minorities in Iraq.” The Iraqi parliamentarian added, “A number of my relatives and close friends have been murdered. Yesterday one of my bodyguards who was also my relative has been kidnapped in Baghdad and we know nothing about his whereabouts. More than 120 officials and activists of our movement, the National Dialogue Front, have been murdered before and after the elections. The Iranian regime has been behind all these murders and kidnappings.”
The Iraqi lawmakers also reiterated that the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran and the residents of Ashraf City are their guests and best friends of Iraqi people and in their 20 years stay in Iraq they have never interfered in Iraq’s internal affairs. They noted that the Iranian regime, by putting pressure on the PMOI members and its efforts to expel them from Iraq, is trying to pave the way for further interference in Iraq. They emphasized that protection of the PMOI was the Islamic duty of all Iraqis and they would never allow any harm on the residents of Ashraf. They described the Mojahedin as the only viable guarantee for establishment of friendly and brotherly relations between the two neighboring countries.
Mr. Casaca, Chair of the meeting stated that according to his information the agents of the Iranian regime had forced close to one million Iraqi Sunnis to leave Baghdad and hundreds of thousands of them have gone to Syria, Jordan and even as far as Egypt. He regretted that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees had done nothing about this large group of people fleeing the county. In connection with 4000 PMOI members residing in Ashraf City, Casaca expressed his regret that despite their political refugee status in Iraq the UNHCR has done nothing and refrained from reaffirming their refugee status. He appealed to the Euro MPs to urge the UNHCR to change its approach to this humanitarian crisis. He added that the FOFI had written a number of letters to the President of the European Parliament, Amnesty International, the U.S. officials and Iraqi authorities calling for their intervention to stop the massacre by agents of the Iranian regime in Iraq and step up their activities in that country.
Many MEPs and their assistants joined the meeting in solidarity with the PMOI in Iraq including Mr. Mogens Camre, Vice-Chairman of the Union for Europe of the Nations Group from Denmark, Erik Meijers, member of the Confederal Group of the European United Left from The Netherlands, Vytautas Landsbergis, former President of the Republic of Lithuania from the group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, Bernat Joan i Mari from the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance from Spain. In conclusion, the participants in the meeting reiterated the need to stop Tehran’s meddling in Iraqi affairs and they called for an end on the pressures exerted on the PMOI.
