At a press conference in Paris on Tuesday, it was announced that 2172 mayors in France have signed a declaration condemning an Iraqi government decision to forcibly displace residents of Camp Ashraf, where some 3,400 Iranian opponents reside in Iraq.

Mayors stressed that any forcible relocation of the residents would be a prelude to their massacre and would spark a humanitarian catastrophe.

A number of the mayors who signed the declaration also appeared at the press conference chaired by Senator Jean-Pierre Michel and unveiled the initiative on behalf of their colleagues. They pointed out that aggression and pressures against Camp Ashraf by the Iraqi government take place in response to pressures exerted by the clerical regime in Tehran and are merely designed to placate that regime.

In their statement, the French mayors also pointed to an April 24, 2009 resolution passed by the European Parliament, and said, “Ashraf residents are protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Iraqi government must respect their rights, refrain from their expulsion or relocation within Iraq and lift the siege imposed against them.”

In a message to the conference, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the Iranian Resistance paid tribute to more than 2,000 mayors who have signed this statement in defense of the popular uprising in Iran for democracy and the rights of Ashraf residents opposing their forcible displacement. The religious fascism ruling Iran, unable to quell the uprising, trying in vain to eliminate Ashraf to pave the way to crush the people’s uprising, she said.

Dr. Saleh Rajavi, the representative of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) in France, highlighted the persistence and escalation of the uprising of the Iranian people during the last six months, and said, “The Resistance’s voice is today echoed in Ashraf. In an illusive hope to silence the voice of opposition inside the country, the ruling regime in Iran has stepped up its pressures on the Iraqi government to destroy the organized opposition, close Ashraf, and relocate its residents to the southern region of the country. Such a move would put them at risk of getting massacred or fall victim to terrorist attacks by Iranian regime agents in Iraq.”

The Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, has called for the “relocation of Ashraf residents to Nuqrat al-Salman” situated in southern Iraq, ultimately leading to their expulsion from Iraq. A government spokesman announced December 15 as the date for the planned relocation.

Deadly attacks by Iraqi forces on July 28 and 29 against Camp Ashraf left 11 dead, 500 injured and 36 residents taken hostage. Thousands of lawmakers in Europe and the US, as well as Amnesty International, International Human Rights League, World Organization Against Torture, Human Rights Watch, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Bishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, and a large number of other political and human rights personalities have expressed their support for Ashraf residents and underscored the need to acknowledge their rights.

The Central Investigative Court No. 4 of the National Court of Spain issued a ruling on November 26, 2009, declaring its jurisdiction to investigate war crimes against the residents of Ashraf. The court announced its jurisdiction on the basis of the Fourth Geneva Convention to investigate serious violations of the Convention committed against Ashraf residents and called for a probe into the criminal attack against Ashraf in July.

French Committee for a Democratic Iran
15 December 2009