In a statement FOFI announced that bombing water supply stations and pipelines are considered as war crimes against protected persons and local residents, according to the Geneva Convention. The FOFI statement reads:

On Friday 8 February 2008, the water supply pumping station which provided water to Ashraf City, home to members of the Iranian opposition movement, People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI) north-eastern Baghdad, was bombed. The pumping station also supplied water to many villages in the Diyala province.

The European Parliament has an official policy on PMOI members in Ashraf. Paragraph 7 of the European Parliament resolution of 12 July 2007 emphasised on “4,000 members of the Iranian opposition who have been political refugees in Iraq for the past 20 years and have the legal status of ’Protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention”.

Bombing water supply stations and pipelines are considered as war crimes against protected persons and local residents, according to the Geneva Convention.

Several days ago Sheikh Hamid Ziab, in charge of the protection of the pumping station, was killed in a terrorist attack which the local community have blamed on the Qods Force, part of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, for this atrocity.

Friends of a Free Iran (FOFI) inter-group in the European Parliament, which includes a wide range of MEPs from various political groups who have visited Camp Ashraf three times already in the past, strongly condemns this bombing and calls on the on Multi-National Force – Iraq and the Iraqi Government to conduct an urgent investigation and prosecute those responsible for this crime.

FOFI is also very concerned by the terrorist activities conducted by agents of the Iranian regime in Iraq against Iranian exiles.

Paulo Casaca MEP
Co-chair, Friends of a Free Iran

Struan Stevenson MEP
Vice-President of EPP-ED
Co-chair, Friends of a Free Iran