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Sunday 27 May 2012

An Iran/Iraq axis?

As Iran in a so-called ‘conciliatory gesture’ released 140 dissident prisoners whom it had jailed during the recent post-election disturbances, horrific reports have filtered out about abuses. The New York Times (subscription required) reports that upwards of an estimated 100 prisoners may have been killed:

Some prisoners say they watched fellow detainees being beaten to death by guards in overcrowded, stinking holding pens. Others say they had their fingernails ripped off or were forced to lick filthy toilet bowls.

The accounts of prison abuse in Iran’s post-election crackdown -- relayed by relatives and on opposition Web sites -- have set off growing outrage among Iranians, including some prominent conservatives. More bruised corpses have been returned to families in recent days, and some hospital officials have told human rights workers that they have seen evidence that well over 100 protesters have died since the vote.

... The number of those killed since the election is impossible to determine, and it includes at least a few members of the Basij militia as well as protesters. One human rights group, International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, said it spoke to doctors in three Tehran hospitals who registered the bodies of 34 protesters on June 20 alone. Other doctors have provided similar accounts and have estimated a death toll of at least 150 based on corpses they saw.

Earlier this month, family members of missing demonstrators were taken to a morgue in southwest Tehran where they reported seeing ‘hundreds of corpses’ and were not allowed to retrieve bodies unless they certified that the deaths were of natural causes, according to accounts relayed on Web sites and to human rights workers.

Meanwhile, it appears that at least seven members of the Iranian opposition group, the Peoples' Mujahideen of Iran, were killed yesterday and 400 others injured in an Iraqi attack on the PMOI headquarters in Ashraf, Iraq. The PMOI set up base in Iraq in the 1980s after being forced to flee Iran. Although they renounced all violence several years ago, they were only taken off the terrorism list in Britain and Europe in the last year or so after a legal battle. According to the BBC, although they are still considered a terrorist group by the US,

reports suggest Washington has received intelligence from the group, and has urged Iraqi authorities not to repatriate its members or use lethal force against them. ‘We have had promises from the government of Iraq that they would deal with the [PMOI] in a humane fashion,’ said US Gen Ray Odierno.

Well so much for those promises. According to an account from the PMOI:

The attack against Ashraf began at 15:00 local time by the Iraqi forces, whose numbers grew to nearly 2,000, and was followed by firing of rounds of live ammunition and using of tear gas canisters, pepper gas, batons, iron bars, clubs, boiling water sprayed at high pressure, and sonic grenades. Iraqi military loaders and armored vehicles demolished gates, fences, and walls of the camp while foot soldiers swarmed the camp from various entry points.

The British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom has condemned the bloodbath in Ashraf:

Several hours after the raid began on Tuesday, Iraqi police opened fire on the unarmed and defenceless residents of the camp. Dozens have been seriously injured and many are in a state of coma. Over 50 of the residents have been arrested, in some cases after they became unconscious. Ms. Zohreh Qaemi, a deputy Secretary General of the PMOI, was shot by Iraqi forces.

The attack is in breach of international law and comes against a background of Baghdad recently claiming that Ashraf residents have no legal status despite having lived in Iraq lawfully for the past 23 years and having been recognized by the US as ‘Protected Persons’ under the 4th Geneva Convention.

The attack goes against the European Parliament's 24 April 2009 resolution on the humanitarian situation in Ashraf which urged Baghdad to make clear it would not expel or displace the residents, and would instead end its siege of the camp and recognise the residents’ status as ‘Protected Persons’ under the 4th Geneva Convention. It violates the written assurances by the government of Iraq to the US administration that Baghdad would treat the residents of Ashraf humanely and consistent with international law.

The atrocity in Ashraf is not just a crime against the Iranian people. It is surely also a deeply alarming sign of co-operation between the Iraqi government and the regime in Iran. The PMOI head Maryam Rajavi has said that although Iraq’s Prime Minister, Nouri al Maliki should be held responsible the order to attack came from Tehran:

She added that the attack was carried out at the behest of the Iranian regime and that the regime’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, is using it in a futile bid to compensate for his humiliating defeat in the face of the Iranian people’s nationwide uprising.

Despite the firmest possible denials from American sources, I continue to hear reports that Iran is pulling Maliki’s strings and that the relative progress in Iraq is illusory, owing much to Iranian influence and strategy. I fervently hope that this is wrong; but the terrible events in Ashraf can surely only deepen that concern.

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