A call for condemnation of psychological war and suppressive measures by Iranian regime and the Iraqi committee against Ashraf residents and their families
Once again, a plot by the Iranian regime’s Ministry of Information and Security (MOIS) to abuse family relationships and feelings for the purpose of applying pressure on Ashraf residents, failed. The Iranian Resistance while revealing some details of these suppressive measures calls on international human rights bodies and organizations to condemn this psychological warfare which constitutes systematic violations of human rights:
1- On October 31, the Iraqi government’s committee for suppression of Ashraf along with a number of Iranian and Iraqi subordinates of the clerical regime approached the Camp Ashraf entrance. The agents were disguised as journalists and were accompanied by a bus full of families and relatives of Ashraf residents sent there by the regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security - Esfahan branch (so-called the Nejat Association). At the entrance, they presented a list of a number of residents who they demanded to meet outside the camp. Ashraf residents replied that anyone interested in a family visit can enter the camp. The Iraqi officials refused any entry.
Over the past 6 years since 2003 until the end of 2008, all families interested in visiting their loved ones coming from Iran or other countries, could freely enter the camp.
2- Consequently it became clear that the MOIS had forbid the families at the point of origin in Esfahan from entering Ashraf, fearing that they would be inspired by their relatives in the camp and would reveal the truth behind the trip to them. Mullahs had planned to use the families against Ashraf residents. By intimidation and bribery the families were asked to persuade their relatives in the camp to repent, surrender and return to Iran. If Ashraf residents did not agree to meet their relative outside of the camp, the mullahs would then use the story to flare another propaganda campaign against the residents. The disinformation campaign is used by mullahs to set stage for political suppression of Ashraf residents and to justify attacking and killing them.
3- Accordingly, the Iraqi government’s committee for the suppression of Ashraf brought along a number of reporters from news media associated with the Iranian regime and a number of MOIS agents to the Ashraf entrance. The reporters were from Al-Aalam TV, the Arabic language news channel of Iranian regime; Al-Forat TV (belongs to the Badr Organization and to Iranian regime’s terrorist Quds Force) and the state-run al-Iraqiye TV. This is while, except a few preselected reporters, no journalist has had permission from the Iraqi government to enter the camp during the past 10 months.
4- From the very first hours, state media in Iran and the Iraqi media subordinate to the Iranian regime began their propaganda campaign claiming that the PMOI is preventing the families to meet in Ashraf. But finally after five days the Iranian regime's plot was foiled in face of Ashraf residents' rational and humane request that their families be allowed to enter Ashraf. The MOIS and the Iraqi committee were forced to let the families enter Ashraf after interventions by international organizations and Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights. The families met with their relatives on November 4-5.
5- During their visit the families explained to their relatives living in Ashraf that MOIS and Nejat Association organized their trip to Ashraf. They were instructed in Tehran by MOIS agents to do all they could to bring their relatives out of Ashraf and back to Iran otherwise they would be held accountable on return to Iran.
6- MOIS agents accompanied the families from Tehran airport to the place of their stay in Baghdad, keeping an eye on them all the time. Two days later, the families were handed over to Iraqi agents of the Iranian regime and were stationed at the entrance of Ashraf besides an Iraqi battalion.
7- The names of a number of MOIS agents who briefed the families in Esfahan are: Ghassem Baba Safati, Siamack Hatami, Reza Sadeghi, Hossein Rezvani, Ramazan Ali Saeedi and Majid Amini. The Iranian regime is planning to send other groups of families from other cities in Iran.
8- In a filthy psychological war, the MOIS agents had bombarded the families with tons of misinformation about the PMOI, Ashraf residents and particularly their relatives. But, after the families visited their loved ones and witnessed the realities in Ashraf, the ridiculous nature of the mullahs’ claims was revealed to them.
9- During their stay outside and inside the camp, the families were repeatedly contacted on their cell phones by MOIS agents from Tehran in order to obtain information on their status and be briefed and provoked against PMOI and Ashraf residents. The names of the regime’s agents who called from Evin prison and hotels in Baghdad, sometimes on an hourly basis, along with details of expenses and payments made to them, are available to be published. A special bonus was offered to anyone who succeeded in making any Ashraf resident leave the camp and return to Iran. This is the reason that Iraqi agents were constantly trying to find out if anyone had agreed to return to Iran.
10- Use of agents of MOIS disguised as families; taking advantage of some family’s poor and needy status; taking hostages from members of the family, are tactics used by the Iranian regime against Ashraf. Ironically, over 200 family members who visited the camp in the past few years have been harassed, arrested, tortured and some sentenced to long prison terms in Iran. Moreover, the Iranian regime continues to raid the home of families of Ashraf residents in Iran, arresting and beating them for visiting their loved ones in Ashraf which is considered a crime.
On January 16, 2009, a group of 16 family members of Ashraf residents who planned to visit Iraq and their children in Ashraf independent of the MOIS-organized tours, were arrested at Tehran airport. Most of them were elderly parents. They were beaten and taken straight from the airport to solitary confinement at Ward 209 of Evin prison and a number of them were sentenced to long prison terms. Subsequently, their private residences were attacked and ransacked by the regime’s suppressive forces. Some of the family members are still in Evin.
11- As Ashraf residents have previously declared, their family members are always welcome to visit them. But they have been denied the right by the clerical regime in Iran and its agents in Iraq, particularly the Iraqi government’s committee for suppression of Ashraf. Since the beginning of the year, after the transfer of protection of Ashraf residents to Iraqi forces, illegal and inhuman blockade on the camp has been implemented prohibiting the entry of any visiting family members, lawyers, jurists, human rights activists, Iraqi and European parliamentarians, reporters and even laborers who had worked in Ashraf for many years in the past. This is while the April 24 resolution of the European Parliament calls on the Iraqi government to respect the rights of Ashraf residents according to the Fourth Geneva Convention, end the blockade, and refrain from forced displacement and expulsion of the camp residents.
12- The Iranian Resistance calls upon the United Nations Secretary General, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), human rights bodies and organizations as well as the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and the commander of American forces in Iraq to condemn the inhuman and suppressive measures against Ashraf residents and their families, and urge the Iraqi government to act according to its duties and international obligations ending the inhuman and criminal blockade on Ashraf.
