Amid continued international calls for Iraq to protect Iranian refugees in Camp Ashraf, government advisor Saad Muttalibi confirmed the Iraqi government’s commitment to Iraq’s logistical principles of human rights and the quest to end this since many years ago, pointing out that international organizations do not cooperate in this aspect for political reasons.
Muttalibi told Radio Free Iraq that the presence of PMOI members in Camp Ashraf is not acceptable because of their cooperation with the former regime in suppressing the popular uprising and for fuelling sectarian violence.
Muttalibi explained that the Iraqi government calls for 1300 Iranian refugees living in Camp Ashraf and European nationalities to leave Iraq, and refers to the possibility of the return of 2000 refugees to Iran after the last time that the Iranian government issued a pardon for them.
Human rights organisations recently called on the United States and the United Nations and the Iraqi government to ensure the protection of Iranian refugees in Camp Ashraf after receiving reports of having been abused by Iraqi security forces, which took over responsibility for the camp from U.S. forces last year [January 1, 2009].
This topic was also discussed by the Foreign Affairs Committee in the U.S. Congress, as students asked members of Congress to protect American residents of Ashraf and the U.S. Department of State to review its decision on the inclusion of the PMOI in the terrorist list.
Saad Muttalibi denied [Iraqi involvement in] violations of human rights in this camp, which he called Camp New Iraq, calling for European countries to call for the protection of Iranian refugees and to receive these refugees, but a member of the Commission on Human Rights in the Iraqi Council of Representatives confirmed that members of the Committee will discuss the situation of refugees in Camp Ashraf soon, noting that they have an agenda for next week to visit secret prisons and detention centres and will also visit Camp Ashraf to find out the truth of what is being built there.
The Iraqi government decided last year to transfer residents of Camp Ashraf to another province but the government adviser Saad Muttalibi stressed that all local governments refused to receive Iranian refugees in the provinces.
Muttalibi said the government will continue its contacts with international organizations concerned with the subject of processing Iranian refugees, but he stressed that such organizations do not cooperate with the Iraqi government because the opinion of these organizations is linked to higher political-parties which are trying to keep these refugees in Iraq.
Al Naeb, MP for a coalition of State of Law considers that the issue of MKO in Iraq is political, not humanitarian.
Hamid al-Mutlaq member Iraqi Council of Representatives for the Iraqi List, expressed the hope that the Iraqi government deal with the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran in accordance with the principles of human rights.
Professor of Political Science Jubouri does not rule out that Iran is pressing Iraq to keep the elements of the PMOI from Iraq, but he believes that the Iraqi government also to consider their interests and trying to deal with this file with the countries of the world.
Samira Mandy, Radio Free Iraq (Radio Free Europe in Arabic)
Translated by Iran Interlink