At an international conference by the French Committee for a Democratic Iran (CFID) held in Paris on March 24, 2012 speakers from the United States and Europe stressed the need for a firm policy towards the Iranian regime.

Attracting thousands of Iranian dignitaries, the meeting also called for the protection of the rights of Ashraf and Liberty residents and the removal of the terrorism label on the main Iranian opposition movement, the People’s Mujahidin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) by the U.S. State Department.

Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the Iranian resistance, offered her condolences to the French people, the Jewish society and the families of the victims of the terrorist attacks in Toulouse. She blamed this tragedy on fundamentalism under the guise of Islam, whose roots are found in Tehran and Qom. “Warnings had been issued about this phenomenon as far back as 25 years ago and these crimes had nothing to do with Islam,” Rajavi stressed.

She said the only means of defeating the fundamentalism and terrorism that hides behind Islam is an alternative based on a democratic and tolerant Islam, and that the PMOI represents this democratic alternative which is the anti-thesis to extremism – an Islam with the message of mercy, freedom, equality, brotherhood, love and co-existence between all religions and all of humanity.

Rajavi declared that with global solidarity, it would be possible to make this the year that sees the defeat of the religious fascism ruling Iran. She added that the only solution to prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb or unprecedented conflict and crisis triggered by the mullahs is regime change by the Iranian people and the Iranian resistance.

“In order to escape their demise, the mullahs have reverted to war with the Iranian people, the people of the region and the international community. At the centre of these measures is their effort to annihilate the organized resistance which holds the key for change in Iran. Attacking Ashraf is done within this context,” Rajavi commented.

“The policy of the United States and the European Union, bowing to the demands of the regime over Ashraf and the continuation of unjustified designation of the Mujahidin (MEK) has worked in favour of the Tehran’s mullahs,” she emphasized.

Referring to the transfer of 1200 Ashraf residents to Camp Liberty, Rajavi said: “This transfer unfortunately has turned to a forcible displacement combined with a lot of harassments and pressures. Despite the repeated calls of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the residents do not have freedom of movement. They are also deprived of meeting their family members and lawyers. Most importantly, the unjustified presence of armed forces within the Camp’s private limits has created constant insecurity for the residents.”

She also warned that the presence of armed forces inside the camp strongly adds to the risk of a humanitarian catastrophe. In these circumstances, the UN is expected to return to its real responsibility of defending the victim and the oppressed, or at least to stay neutral between the Iraqi government and Ashraf residents.

In his remarks, Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York and US Presidential Candidate (2008): “Let me go there (Camp Liberty). Let me see it with my own eyes. In other words, let’s see if my country that I love, the United States of America, is living up to the promise that it made to the people of Ashraf to protect them and to treat them decently or it’s breaking that promise.

And if you don’t want to send me, you can send Judge Mukasey or Tom Ridge or Patrick Kennedy or four or five of us and then you can put us before Congress and put us under oath and I assure you, we’ll tell the truth about it and we’ll get this resolved. Are we being misled or is the State Department breaking its promise to the people of Ashraf? Let’s get an answer to it once and for all.”

The former Mayor of New York added: “And right now, the enemy of stopping a nuclear Iran is appeasement. That’s the false notion that made Iran more determined to become nuclear. Let’s stop the appeasement. Let’s stop trying to negotiate. Let’s stop writing letters to the ayatollah. And let’s stand up, united as Americans in saying we are for regime change in Iran and we will take any step necessary to stop Iran from becoming nuclear.”

Tom Ridge began by stating his readiness to join Mayor Giuliani on his trip to Camp Liberty. He went on: “We will continue to stand with the MEK, with the freedom-loving people of Ashraf and Liberty. I want to stand on the right side of history and I do not worry about anything else.”

Ridge described the scenes of attacks on Ashraf, and strongly criticized the US government for trampling on the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Conventions. He said: “How can my country ignore those vicious attacks? One wonders when last time those responsible for Ashraf looked at those documents.”

He told the UN: “You have not done your job United Nations, and it is about time you did it.”

And he urged the US government: “If you want to send a message to Iran and Maliki about how serious we are, I’ll give you one simple idea: delist the MEK.” Michael Mukasey said: “This conference should be broadcast to the State Department. Then they would see that Rajavi opened this conference by extending her condolences to the Jewish community in Toulouse.”

The former U.S. Attorney General ridiculed the ‘unnamed sources’ at the State Department, saying: “Why anonymous? What are they afraid of? They fear, but we have no fear. We do not hide our names.”

And he told Iranians in audience: “Right prevails in my country and I hope it will not be long before right will prevail in your country.”
Patrick Kennedy strongly criticized the UN and said: “We want action, no more words.” He expressed solidarity with the residents of Camp Liberty, adding: “All of our thoughts are with people in Camp Liberty who are being treated as prisoners and not refugees.”

Philippe Douste-Blazy, Special Adviser and Deputy to the UN Secretary General and French Foreign Minister from 2005 to 2007, also voiced his support for the goals of the conference via a video message.

The article The West Want Immediate Action for Protection of Ashraf appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

The US Committee for Camp Ashraf Residents (USCCAR) deplores Washington Post’s editorial – A U.S. plan to save Iranians who remain in Iraq – , endorsing a US plan for relocation of 3,400 residents of Camp Ashraf to an Iraqi-run de facto detention center near Baghdad’s International airport, formerly known as Camp Liberty.

The insidious piece, replete with double-entendre and mixing of absolutely no facts and lots of fiction, is effectively a farewell gift to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, on his way back to Baghdad, to set in motion the plan for the massacre of Camp Ashraf residents.

The Post is suggesting to have the lives of these Iranians under the control of Maliki, a man, who David Ignatius of the Post has described as “the conspirator turned chief executive” and a “backroom plotter,” whose “own Dawa Party bombed the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait in 1983.” The editorial’s case about relocation of the residents to such a detention center as the best plan to end this humanitarian crisis peacefully is at best wishful thinking.

It is an extremely dangerous suggestion that could prepare the ground for yet another Srebrenica-style massacre. Without any practical and actionable guarantees by the international community, nothing would deter the Iraqi forces of al-Maliki from repeating the massacres they perpetrated in July 2009 and April 2011, killing 47 residents – including eight women – and wounding 1070.

To cover its bloody tracks, the Iraqi government, with the help of the US Embassy, has blocked any investigation into these crimes – as UN had demanded – by the US and European Union parliamentary fact-finding missions.

In light of these killings and the three-year illegal and barbaric siege of Camp Ashraf, the Post’s blindness to volume of facts all pointing to Iraq’s systematic and deliberate breach of its commitment toward Ashraf residents, and to the equally abhorring United States’ inaction in the face of Iraq’s repeated violation of its so-called written assurances to the United States, is ominously suspect.

Astonishingly, in line with Iran’s thirty-year-old policy of blaming the MEK’s leadership for whatever atrocities Iran’s ruling tyrants have committed against the organization – a ploy widely used by Maliki following the July 2009 and April 2011 attacks – the Post’s editorial, in an ultimate act of falsification, sinisterly attempts to shift the blame for an impending massacre away from Maliki – and by extension from the Obama administration – to MEK’s leadership, accusing it of making “unrealistic demands.”

The following facts must be repeated:

Camp Ashraf residents were recognized by the United States as protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention and as such the US provided them protection until January 2009. According to article 45 of the Convention, that responsibility does not elapse if the new protecting power (Iraq since 2009) does not have the capacity and the intent to provide protection.

Iraq has failed on both fronts and thus from a legal standpoint the United States, as the original protecting power, is still bound to ensure the residents’ protection whether or not it has a presence in Iraq.

In 2003 and again in 2004, the United States gave written guaranteed commitment of protection to every individual in Ashraf as long as they remain in Iraq. America is, therefore, still morally and legally responsible for their safety and security. Last September, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) declared that Camp Ashraf residents have applied for refugee status and therefore, under international law as “asylum seekers” they must be able to benefit from basic protection of their security and well-being.

Against this background, the demand by Camp Ashraf residents and its leadership that “U.S. troops or U.N. peacekeeping forces provide security at the new camp,” is indeed completely “realistic” and in line with America’s promises and UNHCR’s declaration.

If the Post’s editorial finds the residents’ morally and legally justified and actionable demand “unrealistic,” then it is acting as a de facto voice of an administration that is dishonoring America by reneging on its commitment to a group of unarmed men, women and children, who in the words of Brig. Gen. David Phillips, former Commandant of U.S. Army Military Police Corps and former Senior Commanding Officer at Camp Ashraf, were vetted and completely investigated by several US agencies which were not able to find an iota of evidence linking any of them to any act of violence.

Furthermore, the Washington Post refers to some of the most patriotic Americans as a “stable of handsomely-paid” mouthpieces of the MEK. This is astonishing as the paper itself has never wasted any time to support the misguided policy of the US State Department to designate the MEK as a terrorist organization in 1997 for purely political considerations and appeasement of the mullahs of Tehran.

The designation, legally and factually discredited and revoked in the United Kingdom, France, and the European Union, and declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Federal Court of Appeals as it violated the due process rights of the MEK, has been used by the Maliki government as a pretext to slaughter the residents.

Additionally, the editorial alleges that the MEK was responsible for killing Americans more than four decades ago when multiple credible independent sources have provided ample countervailing evidence that the current MEK in its entirety has had nothing to do with it.

The Washington Post is wise to remember that history may not judge kindly its expediency in support of an administration that seeks reelection by throwing a group of innocent men and 1,000 Muslim women, who have already been victimized by the barbarism of Iraqi soldiers, into the wolves.

Unfortunately, in this case of the impending humanitarian catastrophe of monumental dimension, the Post has opted to take the wrong side and has issued a license to murder the residents by blaming the victims instead of the butchers.

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