Press Release
82 Iraqi MPs warn about rights violations against Ashraf residents in relocation to Liberty

In a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, 82 Iraqi Members of Parliament stressed the objective of the MoU signed between the UN and Iraqi government was to relieve Ashraf residents of the siege, inhuman treatment and harassment. Unfortunately, however, reports indicate the Iraqi government intends to transform the new location into a prison for the residents by depriving them of their right to ownership of their property; placing them in a ½ sq. km camp; stationing police units in their residential areas and attempting to have the UN along in implementing this plan.

In this letter, Mr. Maliki’s remarks against Ashraf residents in Iranian regime media outlets, by threatening to use the judicial branch and implicitly using military forces are described as an obvious disregard to the MoU signed with the UN, adding such measures deserve an appropriate response from the UN and the Special Representative of the Secretary General in Iraq, while viewing any silence in the face of such threats as dangerous.
 
Recalling the UN Secretary General’s reports to the Security Council dating 7 July 2011 and 5 December 2011 which emphasized on the consensual aspect of all solutions regarding Ashraf residents and the necessity of having the residents’ consent, MPs wrote the current developments are far from these stated remarks and international principles and Camp Ashraf residents have not only yet to be relieved from the pressures of the siege and incubus treatment, in fact new pressures are being imposed in this case with the intention to defeat the peaceful solution.

The MPs also wrote that the trend of developments and status quo that have been planned in Camp Liberty all compose of a forced relocation to a detention center, and they warn on UNAMI’s silence towards such a situation. The MPs concluded that members of the Parliament Human Rights Commission and the residents’ lawyers must be allowed to visit Camp Liberty to evaluate the human rights standards with its current conditions before any relocation takes place. In this letter it has been stressed the UNHCR and UNAMI have surprisingly given in to the government’s pressures to postpone the residents’ refugee status process and as a result lost valuable months to find a solution for Camp Ashraf residents.

The MPs called on the UNCHR to initiate this legal process inside Ashraf for all the camp residents and warned not a single day must be lost to begin this process in Camp Ashraf.

Heidar Mulla
Iraqi Parliament Human Rights Commission Rapporteur
Iraqiya Coalition Official Spokesman
29 January 2012