NCRI – Following a terrorist attack on a passenger bus carrying Iraqi workers to Ashraf City, home to thousands of PMOI members in Iraq on Monday, the Nordic Iran Committee (NIC) called on Iraqi authorities to take measures to protect PMOI.
In a letter to the Iraqi Foreign Minister, Lennart Friden, Former Swedish MP and President of the NIC wrote:
"Now it has happened again! A bomb went off on the road in Khalis city which killed 14 people and wounded 15 others. All the passengers were merely workers going to Ashraf City some 70 kilometers north of Baghdad.
"Such terrorist attacks are routine for the Iranian regime in dealing with the Mojahedin. In 1999 a passenger bus traveling on the same route was commuting to Ashraf City when it was hit by a remote controlled car bomb that killed six and wounded 21, near a hospital north of Baghdad. The next day Ashraf City was attacked by Scud missiles.
"This terrorist operation comes after the mullahs succeeded through their proxies in Iraqi government to stop food, fuel and medicine rations for the PMOI in Ashraf City.
"In my view the Mojahedin are entitled to political asylum in every respect least of which spending 20 years in Iraq and being the main enemy of the mullahs’ regime in Tehran.
"The people in nearby city of Khalis to my understanding have gotten along with the movement in their close proximity very well. I once heard from people there that the Mojahedin have helped the residents in every way possible including economically by creating needed jobs for the local workers.
"The Mojahedin are also the most dedicated people in restraining the mullahs’ quest for expanding fundamentalism into Iraq.
"Your new government, I believe, should grant the Mojahedin political refugee status promptly.
"I hope that you see to it that this resistance movement to the Iranian regime which we all are conscious of its potentials for stirring trouble in Iraq is kept well protected from the mullahs’ harm according to the fourth Geneva Convention."
