Aswat al-Iraq, Baghdad, October 14, 2009 – United Nations human rights officials have welcomed an Iraqi government decision to release 36 members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), who had been detainees since July last when Iraqi security personnel were trying to take control of Camp Ashraf Camp Ashraf or Ashraf City is situated northeast of the Iraqi town of Khalis, about 20 kilometers west of the Iranian border and 60 kilometers north of Baghdad.

The city of Ashraf was named in commemoration of Ashraf Rajavi, a famous political prisoner at the time of the Shah. , according to according to prep. ’Rupert Colville, a spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), told journalists in Geneva Geneva, canton and city, Switzerland that the world body was grateful that the Government had responded to a request from High Commissioner Navi Pillay to release the detainees,’ read the statement that was published on the official web site of the UN News Centre. ’In a two-day operation in late July, Iraqi security personnel took control of Camp Ashraf. Eleven people were killed and dozens more were wounded in that operation, Mr. Colville said.’ ’’All detainees in Iraq, including members of PMOI, are entitled to proper judicial procedures and — if there is evidence they may have committed a crime — a fair trial,’ he said. ’They should be granted all the rights guaranteed to them under international and domestic laws’. ’Mr. Colville stressed that OHCHR considers it ’a matter of paramount importance that a long-term solution be found for the residents of Camp Ashraf, inside Iraq or elsewhere. We recognize that the past history of several members of this group is a complicating factor.

But the status quo [Latin, The existing state of things at any given date.] Status quo ante bellum means the state of things before the war. The status quo to be preserved by a preliminary injunction is the last actual, peaceable, uncontested status which preceded the pending controversy. is not tenable ten•a•ble adj. 1. Capable of being maintained in argument; rationally defensible: a tenable theory.

’’In the meantime, the fundamental rights of the camp’s occupants should be respected, including the right not to be forcibly returned to their home country so long as there is a risk of torture’,’ he added. Those released are part of around 3,400 members of the PMOI, who have been living in Camp Ashraf in Diala province.