etter urges UN Secretary General to take action to protect Ashra

NCRI

Following the assault on Camp Ashraf residents and its buildings on midnight Thursday, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi (Known Political opposition figure) wrote a letter to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, urging immediate UN action to protect Ashraf residents.
Text of the letter follows.

Honorable Ban Ki-moonSecretary General of the United Nations

Dear Secretary General,

I am writing this letter to draw your esteemed attention to an urgent
threat to the lives and safety of the residents of Camp Ashraf, Iraq, who are
members of the Iranian opposition, the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran
(PMOI), and to request your immediate intervention to ensure their protection.At
11:30 pm (local time), Thursday, April 15, Iraqi forces attacked the residents
and tried to occupy the buildings inside the Camp's main gate, in an attempt to
lend support to operatives dispatched to Camp Ashraf's main gate by the Iranian
Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and the Islamic Revolutionary
Guards Corps' terrorist Qods Force.For the past 70 days, these agents, enjoying
the full support of the Iraqi government and the Iraqi Committee to Suppress
Ashraf in the Iraqi Prime Minister's office as well as the Iraqi forces, have
camped out at Ashraf's main gate, threatening the residents round-the-clock with
"setting the camp on fire," and "killing" the Mojahedin. Using powerful
loudspeakers and amplifiers, they have been disrupting the residents' sleep and
tranquility.

As the Iranian Resistance has declared repeatedly over the past few months,
these actions amount to psychological torture as well as provocation and
creating chaos in order to set the stage for an even bigger humanitarian
catastrophe than the one on July 28 and 29, 2009.

Around midnight Thursday, while the Iranian regime's agents were continuing
to shout profanities and threatening the residents of Ashraf through their
loudspeakers, an Iraqi Colonel and Captain, named Ali and Jawad, ordered the
residents of Ashraf that loudspeakers on PMOI buildings inside the Camp
broadcasting music, had been ordered turned off by the Iraqi government within
10 minutes, so that what the agents' chants could be heard all over the
camp.

They said that if the order was not complied with, they would use
force to occupy the buildings inside the main gate of Ashraf.The residents asked
that the loudspeakers for the Iranian regime's agents be turned off as
well.

Iraqi commanders told them that on orders of the government, the
agents were free to broadcast any program, but Ashraf residents were not allowed
to do so. At the same time, a large number of armed Iraqi forces, some equipped
with sticks, clubs daggers and batons, backed up by five armored Humvees entered
Ashraf and threatened to shoot and kill the residents.

These forces subsequently beat up the residents, using electric and shock
batons as well as iron bars. Five residents, Karim Gomasaee, Mehdi Abdol-Rahimi,
Azim Mishmast, Rahim Sohrabi and Khaled Shah Karami, were injured and taken to
hospital.

The assailants tired to take a number of the residents hostage as
they had done in July. They attempted to drag away one of the female residents,
but were unable to do so after she resisted and other residents protested.

Around 3:00 am, the Iraqi forces left Ashraf after protests and chants by
the residents.The incident last night serves as a new warning, demonstrating
that not only the Iraqi government is unqualified, unable and unwilling to
protect Ashraf, but, on the contrary, influenced by the Iranian regime and
acting on its behest, it continues to conspire against the residents and is
trying to suppress and eliminate them.

In view of the parliamentary elections and the uncertain political
situation in Iraq, the Iraqi government has stepped up its efforts in this
regard.The Committee formed in the Prime Minister's office last year, is acting
on the orders of the Iranian regime's embassy.

In a letter to the Iraqi Prime Minister on December 2, 2009, a copy of
which was provided to the residents of Ashraf, Vice President of the European
Parliament wrote "The committee formed at your office known as 'Committee to
Close Down Ashraf' is a suppressive apparatus pursuing the aims of the Iranian
regime."

In a statement yesterday, the Iranian Resistance revealed, "Reports sent by
the Iranian regime's embassy in Baghdad to the terrorist Qods Force and the
regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) reveal that Iraqi Prime
Minister’s office and the Iraqi Army battalion stationed at Ashraf are
cooperating fully with the MOIS agents camped out at Ashraf’s main gate ..

The Commander of the 3rd Battalion of the 37th Brigade of the 9th Division
of the Iraqi Army and the battalion's chain of command, supposedly responsible
for protection of Ashraf residents, are providing logistical support to the MOIS
agents posing as families of Ashraf residents…

In the past two months, the battalion commander, his deputy, two officers
of the Iraqi Army's intelligence branch and two other battalion officers are
also helping them."You no doubt confirm that these actions are a manifest case
of systematic psychological torture and the violation of many international laws
and conventions, including provisions of international humanitarian law and the
United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment.

Because the conduct of the Iraqi government and forces as well as the
stated goal of the Iranian regime to massacre the residents of Ashraf
undoubtedly constitute a case of crime against humanity, the time has come that
as a staunch advocate of the Responsibility to Protect and in order to defend
the basic rights of the residents of Ashraf which have been blatantly violated
in the past 15 months, you undertake the necessary measures to ensure the
protection of the defenseless residents of Ashraf.

I assure you, Mr. Secretary General, of the expression of my highest
regards

Maryam Rajavi