Trucks filled with fuel, foodstuffs, chlorine for water purification and other basic necessities were routinely stopped at the gates and turned back. The Iraqi government had banned the Ashrafis from purchasing fuel in Iraq, so all fuel supplies had to come by road from Kuwait, at huge cost. On one occasion the drivers of two fuel trucks were arrested and held in a local jail for 20 days until released by a judge. Medical supplies were also turned away. The Ashraf workshops were no longer able to sell their goods to the local Arab population of Diyala Province, cutting off all sources of essential income. Lacking fuel to keep their generators working and rationing their dwindling food supplies, the 3,400 residents were now subjected to extreme psychological torture. Banks of giant loudspeakers began tobe erected by Iraqi technicians around the perimeter fences of the camp. Over 300 of these speakers were used to roar endless threats and insults at ear-shattering decibel levels day and night, seven days a week, to torture the residents and destroy any chance of rest.
But the stress didn’t stop there. Ominous and threatening news filtered out from the office of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that senior Iraqi government officials had drawn up a list of 23 leading ‘terrorists’ from Camp Ashraf whom they intended to arrest, while the remainder would be deported to Iran. They also stated that any Iraqi citizen found to be providing aid to any of the ‘terrorists’ in Camp Ashraf would be prosecuted under Iraq’s anti-terrorist legislation. Seriously ill patients from Ashraf who had previously been allowed to attend hospitals in Baqubah and Baghdad for surgery, to treat life-threatening cancer and heart disease, were now barred from leaving the camp. Ten died as a direct result.
The European Parliament adopted a strong resolution on Ashraf on 24 April 2009. We had to challenge many amendments from the regime’s apologists in the parliament who tried to turn the text against the PMOI, as instructed by the Iranian embassy in Brussels. I was in charge of coordinating the meeting that prepared the final text for the resolution and we managed to defeat all those amendments in the voting session in plenary, and the resolution became quite an historic document, emphasising the rights of these Iranian dissidents as Protected Persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention and calling for their security and safety.
A year later in the European Parliament I started a written declaration (petition) calling for an end to the siege and the psychological torture of the Ashraf residents, and for their imminent evacuation to countries of safety. More than half of the 752 MEPs signed the petition, which became the official position of the parliament, (adopted on 25 November 2010). I drew attention to the provocative human rights breaches at the camp in repeated letters, articles, press releases and speeches, but to no avail. The EU, UN and US stayed silent and apparently indifferent.
Against this worsening background I remained deeply concerned that another bloody attack could take place at any time, leading to a Srebrenica-style annihilation of the unarmed refugees in the camp. Itwas clear that an urgent solution had to be found to the Ashraf crisis, but once again the international community seemed incapable of action. Ad Melkert and Tahar Boumedra called together a second meeting of the EU and US ambassadors in Baghdad, but were met with prejudicial statements and mutterings about terrorists and evil cults, based on propaganda circulated by the Iranian regime. The Mullahs were keen to propagate the rumour that many people were being held against their will in Camp Ashraf. They claimed that discipline was so rigorous that any dissenters were beaten and permission to leave the camp was routinely denied.
In fact, my close friends and MEP colleagues Alejo Vidal-Quadras and Paulo Casaca had both visited Ashraf (Paulo on several occasions),
But the stress didn’t stop there. Ominous and threatening news filtered out from the office of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that senior Iraqi government officials had drawn up a list of 23 leading ‘terrorists’ from Camp Ashraf whom they intended to arrest, while the remainder would be deported to Iran. They also stated that any Iraqi citizen found to be providing aid to any of the ‘terrorists’ in Camp Ashraf would be prosecuted under Iraq’s anti-terrorist legislation. Seriously ill patients from Ashraf who had previously been allowed to attend hospitals in Baqubah and Baghdad for surgery, to treat life-threatening cancer and heart disease, were now barred from leaving the camp. Ten died as a direct result.
The European Parliament adopted a strong resolution on Ashraf on 24 April 2009. We had to challenge many amendments from the regime’s apologists in the parliament who tried to turn the text against the PMOI, as instructed by the Iranian embassy in Brussels. I was in charge of coordinating the meeting that prepared the final text for the resolution and we managed to defeat all those amendments in the voting session in plenary, and the resolution became quite an historic document, emphasising the rights of these Iranian dissidents as Protected Persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention and calling for their security and safety.
A year later in the European Parliament I started a written declaration (petition) calling for an end to the siege and the psychological torture of the Ashraf residents, and for their imminent evacuation to countries of safety. More than half of the 752 MEPs signed the petition, which became the official position of the parliament, (adopted on 25 November 2010). I drew attention to the provocative human rights breaches at the camp in repeated letters, articles, press releases and speeches, but to no avail. The EU, UN and US stayed silent and apparently indifferent.
Against this worsening background I remained deeply concerned that another bloody attack could take place at any time, leading to a Srebrenica-style annihilation of the unarmed refugees in the camp. Itwas clear that an urgent solution had to be found to the Ashraf crisis, but once again the international community seemed incapable of action. Ad Melkert and Tahar Boumedra called together a second meeting of the EU and US ambassadors in Baghdad, but were met with prejudicial statements and mutterings about terrorists and evil cults, based on propaganda circulated by the Iranian regime. The Mullahs were keen to propagate the rumour that many people were being held against their will in Camp Ashraf. They claimed that discipline was so rigorous that any dissenters were beaten and permission to leave the camp was routinely denied.
In fact, my close friends and MEP colleagues Alejo Vidal-Quadras and Paulo Casaca had both visited Ashraf (Paulo on several occasions),
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