Call on USA, EU & UN to take practical measures to protect Iranian refugees in Camp Liberty, Iraq

The brutal terrorist attack against defenceless Iranian refugees in Camp Liberty near Baghdad airport on Thursday 29 October was a crime against humanity. It was a massacre we have warned would happen for months. In numerous letters, press releases and statements we had alerted the USA government, the UN and the EU that the Iraqi government is not a competent entity to be responsible for the security of this camp and that as such, the refugees interned within this ‘death-camp’ were in imminent danger. Our warnings were ignored. It is pointless now for Western politicians to demand that Baghdad must investigate the Camp Liberty massacre, as clearly they have colluded with the perpetrators of this crime under the influence of agents of the Iranian regime who have penetrated to the core of the Iraqi government.

For example the same criminals who were responsible for previous massacres against the residents in Ashraf have been allowed to remain in charge of Camp Liberty, particularly, Faleh al-Fayad, the national security advisor of former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. He now holds the same position under Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. Fayad and his cousin Hadi al-Ameri, head of the terrorist Badr Organization, are agents of Tehran and have planned and committed numerous crimes against PMOI members in Iraq in recent years. We have repeatedly pointed this out to the international community and revealed the continued abuse and repression of the Camp Liberty refugees by these murderous criminals, but our warnings once again have been ignored.

Faleh al-Fayad, the key oppressor of the Camp Liberty refugees, has in recent weeks allowed the transfer of groups of the Iranian regime’s agents to Liberty, under the pretext that they are relatives and family members of the residents. Such actions that are a direct repetition of events that occurred outside Camp Ashraf in 2010 and 2011, provided sinister cover for surveillance and reconnaissance of the camp, which led, subsequently, to successive bloody attacks and massacres of unarmed refugees in Ashraf. Again we warned the international community that this was a certain precursor to a renewed massacre, and again we were ignored.

As the residents are living in highly vulnerable and flimsy trailers, their surrounding protective concrete T-walls have been taken away by the Iraqi authorities and they were denied the right to receive even their own protective helmets and vests, which they were forced to abandon in Camp Ashraf. Again we repeatedly warned that this blatant denial of their rights to their own property would render them vulnerable to missile attacks. Again we were ignored by the UN, US and EU.

Just condemning this atrocity is not enough. These refugees must be transferred to the US and to European countries immediately. As a matter of urgency, we urge the UN, US and EU to take the following practical measures to protect the Iranian dissidents in Camp Liberty from further bloodshed and death:

• The US must provide air cover for Camp Liberty to prevent further attacks
• The protective concrete T-Walls and the residents’ protective helmets and vests must be returned forthwith
• Faleh al-Fayad and his men who run the daily management of Camp Liberty must be immediately replaced by those not affiliated with or beholden to the Iranian regime and its cohorts
• All international assistance to Iraq must be suspended forthwith until the security of the Camp Liberty residents is assured
• The UN must stop any further obfuscation and officially recognise Camp Liberty as a refugee camp under its direct supervision and protection

Struan Stevenson

Struan Stevenson is President of the European Iraqi Freedom Association (EIFA). He was a UK Conservative Member of the European Parliament from 1999 to 2014 and President of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Iraq from 2009 to 2014

European Iraqi Freedom Association (EIFA), 1050 Brussels, Belgium

President: Struan Stevenson, Chairman of European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Iraq (2009-2014), Members of the board: Alejo Vidal-Quadras, Vice President of the European Parliament (1999-2014); Stephen Hughes, 1st Vice-President of European Parliament Socialist Group (2009-2014); Giulio Terzi, Former Foreign Minister of Italy; Ryszard Czarnecki,Vice-President of the European Parliament; Lord Carlile of Berriew, QC; Paulo Casaca MEP (1999-2009); Kimmo Sasi, MP (Finland); and honorary members including Tariq Hashemi, former Vice President of Iraq , Sid Ahmed Ghozali Former Prime Minister of Algeria

White House: Funding Hezbollah will continue to give Iran difficulties with int’l markets

WASHINGTON - If Iran continues to allegedly fund terrorism, including supplying resources to Hezbollah, it will have a negative business impact on Iran, a White House spokesman said on Monday.
“Financial actors do not want to do business with a country that is funding terrorism,” White House principal deputy press secretary Eric Schultz said during a briefing.
“So we call on Iran to not only stop doing this because it is not good for national security and they are supporting terrorism, but we call on Iran to stop doing it because it is not in their interest either,” Schultz said.


White House principal deputy press secretary Eric Schultz
The United States will continue to use all the tools at its disposal, including sanctions, to target Hezbollah, which is a designated foreign terrorist organization, he said.
“We believe our designations over the past year designating Hezbollah procurement networks, financial and commercial front companies and other entities have been highly effective,” Schultz said. The sanctions regime passed earlier this year further builds on that and has created a climate throughout the world where financial institutions are rejecting Hezbollah from their institutions, he added.
“But … if Iran is going to continue to support Hezbollah, Hezbollah is going to continue to have a funding stream and resources,” Schultz said. “That is why it is all the more important that if Iran wants access to international markets, they are going to need to curb their own behavior.”

Fmr Palestinian chief justice shows solidarity with ‘Free Iran’ gathering

Sheikh Taysir al-Tamimi, the former chief justice of Palestine, has sent a video message of solidarity to the upcoming “Free Iran” gathering which will be held in Paris on July 9.

In his message, broadcasted by the Iranian opposition satellite channel Simaye Azadi, Sheikh al-Tamimi condemned the mullahs’ regime in Iran for mass executions and in particular for its export of terrorism and complicity with Bashar al-Assad in the mass killing of Syrian people......http://bit.ly/28W3sWS

open your mind before your mouth

The Iran deal dirty tricks never end

By New York Post Editorial Board, June 25, 2016

Last week’s revelation that ex-Ambassador Thomas Pickering pushed the Iran nuke deal while secretly working for Boeing makes you wonder: Were any of the deal’s backers not paid for their support?
Boeing now stands to make $25 billion selling planes to Tehran. That’s a nice return on its investment in Pickering, a respected ex-diplomat who has worked for the aircraft-maker for years.
Pickering played a key role in drumming up support for the nuke deal that made Boeing’s sale possible. But neither he nor the company bothered to disclose their relationship at the time.
Nor was he the only one hawking the deal while secretly being paid by its supporters: A key White House ally, the Ploughshares Fund, also funneled piles of cash to friendly media. NPR, for one, got $100,000 to “report” on negotiations with Iran.
The cash helped feed the “echo chamber” that Obama aide Ben Rhodes cited as key to rallying support for the pact.
And now Team Obama’s fighting a p.r. war to keep the deal alive. Administration officials, for example, admit that uranium particles found at Iran’s Parchin military base likely came from a nuclear-weapons program there.
The particles, unearthed by UN watchdogs last year, are the first physical proof of nuke-building efforts. But Team Obama buried the news of the find and pooh-poohs its significance.
Uranium at the site by itself doesn’t “definitively prove anything,” an Obama aide told The Wall Street Journal.
Well, maybe not “definitively.” But Iran earlier removed truckloads of soil from the site — a clear attempt to hide evidence. It won’t let the UN folks interview its scientists. And under the nuke deal, inspectors can’t even collect more samples.
Fact is, even Obama & Co. say they believe Iran tried to build nukes — meaning it has blatantly lied all along. Yet in selling the accord, President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry vowed they’d force Iran to “come clean.” Guess the mullahs weren’t the only ones who lied.
There’s more: Kerry’s now telling the world it’s safe to resume trade with the terror-sponsoring mullahs — infuriating the Treasury Department, which warns that sanctions remain in effect. And The Washington Free Beacon reports that State is pushing to renege on a promise to ban Iran from the US financial system.
Meanwhile, Obama has refused to punish Russia for illegally selling Iran S-300 surface-to-air missiles — despite his authority to use sanctions under a 1992 law. An aide at State told the Beacon the president had yet to decide how to respond to the sale — or whether to respond at all.
Obama & Co. used every sleazy trick in the book to get this rotten deal through. Now, to keep it alive, he’s breaking every vow he made about it.