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The sanctity of human rights must be safeguarded |
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Friday, 24 June 2005 |
Political SupportIn a conference, in British Parliament, several
Parliamentarians released a joint statement condemning the Human Rights
Watch Report's on People Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI) and
called for removal of the PMOI from the list of terrorist organizations.
Joint Statement
The sanctity of human rights must be safeguarded and kept free of
political manipulation
Human rights groups, Parliamentarians, jurists and Iranian communities
around the world are dismayed by the recent report of the New
York-based Human Rights Watch alleging serious human rights abuses by
the Iranian opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin (PMOI), against
its own members.
1. The allegations are not new. Parliamentarians in Britain and in
other European countries have often found themselves targets of the
Iranian regime’s disinformation strategy, as it attempts to tarnish the
image of its principal opponents.
2. We are concerned that Human Rights Watch has published such serious
allegations against the PMOI without a proper investigation. Twelve
hours of telephone interviews with 12 individuals are simply
insufficient to produce an authoritative report. HRW conducted no
face-to-face interviews, no physical or medical examinations, and no
on-site inspection of the camp where the alleged abuses are said to
have occurred.
3. It demeans the standing of Human Rights Watch that it has accepted
at face value the claims of individuals whose ties to the Iranian
secret police, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), have
already been exposed. Security services in several European countries,
including the Netherlands and Germany, where all the 12 “witnesses”
cited in the report are based, have been sufficiently alarmed by these
activities to question and warn these individuals about their ties to
Iranian intelligence. In its latest annual report, published in May
2005, the German security agency (BfV) wrote that the PMOI and the
National Council of Resistance of Iran “remain the focus of the
activities of the Iranian intelligence agency in Germany.” The report
adds: “The Ministry of Intelligence and Security of Iran uses a network
of agents to collect information and carry out espionage. These agents
are former members of the People’s Mojahedin and are invited to go to
Iran to be briefed.” The PMOI unveiled a secret MOIS memorandum in
August 2002 that showed Mohammad-Hossein Sobhani, a key “witness” in
the HRW report, was a team-leader and veteran agent of Iranian
intelligence. It showed that most of those interviewed by Human Rights
Watch were sent from Iran to Europe for the purpose of demonizing the
PMOI. The activities of another MOIS agent, Karim Haqi, were documented
in the 1990s by the British Parliamentary Human Rights Group.
4. Human Rights Watch, contrary to normal practice, did not ask the PMOI to comment on the allegations.
5. The PMOI and the National Council of Resistance of Iran have several
times invited Human Rights Watch to visit PMOI camps in Iraq, including
in a letter to Human Rights Watch on October 28, 1994, by NCRI
President Mr. Massoud Rajavi. In a letter to the British Parliamentary
Human Rights Group on November 4, 1994, the then-HRW Executive Director
Christopher George acknowledged this invitation. Hundreds of Western
journalists, Parliamentarians, jurists, and human rights activists did
visit PMOI facilities in Iraq. None found evidence to support the
allegations in the HRW report.
6. The HRW report makes no mention of the fact that in the past two
years, every PMOI member in Camp Ashraf in Iraq has been interviewed
and screened by seven agencies of the United States government. These
investigations led to the announcement that “a 16-month review by the
United States has found no basis to charge members of the [PMOI] in
Iraq with violations of American law” and a statement by senior U.S.
officials that “extensive interviews by officials of the State
Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation had not come up with
any basis to bring charges against any members of the group.” (New York
Times, July 27, 2004).
7. Human Rights Watch’s report fails to mention that U.S. officials at
Camp Ashraf have denied that individuals have been barred from leaving.
The Knight Ridder news agency reported from Camp Ashraf on March 19
2005: “The U.S. military has investigated claims that the Mujahedeen
were keeping people in Ashraf against their will, but found no solid
evidence." It quoted a senior U.S military official as saying: "They
are not prisoners. They are reasonably and physically free to leave."
8. Human Rights Watch ignores the fact that a majority of members of
the House of Commons and more than 100 Peers, in a January 2004
statement, called for removal of the PMOI from the list of terrorist
groups. After listing the growing Parliamentary and Congressional
support on both sides of the Atlantic for an end to this blacklisting,
HRW felt able to consider “it would be a huge mistake to promote an
opposition group that is responsible for serious human rights abuses.”
9. Iran’s state-run media and press have used the HRW report as a
vindication of their brutal repression of PMOI activists and supporters
in Iran. One government-run website (Iran-Didban), known as a front for
the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, had two dozen stories on the
HRW report, including fresh calls on the Iraqi government to hand over
the thousands of PMOI members in Iraq to Iran.
10. We call on Human Rights Watch to withdraw this unsubstantiated
report. It would better live up to its name by concentrating on the
real human rights abuses by the mullah who rule Iran.
Lord Corbett of Castle Vale
Chairman, British Committee For Iran Freedom |
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