H. E. Mr. Ban Ki-moon
Secretary-General
United Nations
New York
Rome, June 15, 2012.

Your Excellency,
The Italian Committee of Parliamentarians and Citizens for a Free Iran learned with great concern that your Special Representative for Iraq, Mr. Martin Kobler, used the opportunity of his recent trip to Tehran to meet with the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and to involve the Iranian regime in the case of the about 3,400 Iranian asylum seekers currently living in Iraq. It is quite evident that involving a regime in the fate of its main opposition’s members is against International law, and it should never be
acceptable.

Unfortunately, the Iraqi government does all it can to fulfil the wishes of the Tehran rulers: As the world knows, Iraqi troops have repeatedly attacked the Iranian refugees in Ashraf, and in the last few months they have been forcing them to move to Camp Liberty without providing the minimum living standards, denying them the possibility of keeping most of their property and continuously harassing them. What is even worse, all this happens without any protest by – if not with the agreement of – the UNSG Special Representative there.

Mr Kobler failed to fulfill any of his commitments made to the residents of Ashraf. While the first 2,000 – out of 3,400 – Ashraf residents have moved to Camp Liberty in the last few months, we understand that no other people are going to move from Ashraf without guarantees for their lives, security, living conditions and dignity.

The SGSR for Iraq should keep a neutral stand about the asylum seekers issue, must not push them to move to a camp that is currently by any standard a prison, and cannot operate to support the plans of the Tehran regime to further suppress its opponents.

While the Ashraf and Camp Liberty residents are «protected persons» under International Law, we urge you, Your Excellency, to appoint as your Special Representative for Iraq a person who will really act on a neutral basis, in due respect to humanitarian standards and seeking a finally acceptable, peaceful solution for this long standing issue.