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Iranian Opposition Group says Members are Under Threat | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Cairo, Asharq Al-Awsat- Iranian opposition Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization [MKO] has warned anew against what it describes as a “massacre” that is being prepared of its members in Ashraf Camp northeast of Baghdad. A source at the bureau of the National Council of Resistance of Iran [Iran-e-azad] in Paris told Asharq Al-Awsat that Iranian elements were sent to the camp with the help of Iraqi forces to stage-manage a scenario through which the Iraqi people would seem to demand the eviction of the camp inhabitants, whose number is some 3,000 people.

Sources at Ashraf Camp say that new Iranian elements entered the camp yesterday replacing previous elements that were in the camp. The sources expresses his apprehension that this step might be an indication that these elements would carry out what he describes as “a massacre” exploiting the New Year’s vacation in Iraq.

The sources point out that the Iranian authorities are exerting pressure on Iranians detained in Iranian prisons because of their links to elements in the camp. The sources say: “The Iranian regime has refused a political prisoner in one of Tehran prisons medical treatment, because his daughter is in Ashraf Camp; his name is Mohsen Dakm gee [name as transliterated].” The sources confirm that Mohsen Dakm’s health condition is bad, and he needs to be transferred to the prison hospital.

Reports and eyewitnesses say that the conditions of MKO members, who fled from Iran to Iraq during the era of late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, are deteriorating. The supervisors of the camp accuse the Iraqi security forces of working to prevent the arrival of food and medicines, and complacency about treating the sick, which has caused the death of some and the deterioration of the conditions of others.

The sources accuse the government committee supervising Ashraf Camp, which is affiliated to the office of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, of being responsible for the death of a number of MKO members, the latest of which is Muhammad Haydaran, who died yesterday in Ba’qubah hospital in Diyali Governorate, following an operation on a cancer tumor in the brain. The sources consider that Haydaran’s death was due to deliberate delay of the operation for one year.

The sources express their belief that these measures practiced against MKO members in Ashraf camp are due to the pledges made by Prime Minister Al-Maliki to the Iranian regime in exchange for the Iranian regime’s support for his second term.

The secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, in a statement of which Asharq Al-Awsat received a copy, calls on the UN Security Council, the UN secretary general, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the European Union, and the United States to adopt urgent measures against the “Mullahs regime because of its increasing violations of human rights in Iran.”