Monday, February 09, 2009

Following the removal of the PMOI from the European Union’s terrorist list, David Kilgour, co-chair of the Canadian Friends of a Democratic Iran, asked the Canadian government to end the appeasement policy with the religious fascism ruling Iran and stand by the Iranian people and Resistance for democratic change in Iran.

Part of the statement published Kilgour’s website on January 27, 2009 reads:
The time for democratic change in Iran by the Iranian people is long overdue. Canada’s long-term political and economic relations are best served by standing with its people, not the totalitarian regime. The time for appeasing the ayatollahs and suppressing the Iranian opposition must end.

PMOI refugees in Camp Ashraf The 3500 residents of Camp Ashraf, some of whom have been refugees from the terror in Tehran since 1981, and others since the mid-1980s when they were as refugees expelled from France, could become victims of a humanitarian disaster unless the new Obama administration, in which the world has such high hopes, continues to deploy its soldiers for the protection of the camp. In June 2006, I understand that more than five million Iraqis, including 14,000 lawyers, presented a petition in favour of Camp Asfraf’s continued presence in Iraq. On June 17, 2008, more than three million Iraqis Shiites presented a petition, which evidently favours both Ashraf’s continued presence and the PMOI. Both of these petitions are today available for inspection at Camp Ashraf.

Finally, two reasons why personnel from outside Iraq must continue to protect Camp Ashraf with Iraqi soldiers for as long as coalition forces are in Iraq: 1-Informed sources indicate that, as long as at least some American or other coalition personnel are involved in the daily patrols around Ashraf, agents of the Iranian regime are less likely to attack residents of the camp or the camp itself. 2- A major part of the Ashraf residents’ problem lies in the fact that a number of governments in Europe and North America, including the US and Canada, continued to list the PMOI as a foreign terrorist organization. In all probability, as noted by Mrs. Maryam Rajavi yesterday, the ripple effects of what happened yesterday will play a major role in bringing multiparty democracy, human dignity and the rule of law to the long-suffering people of Iran.