mr president some in this chamber want to present the people's mujahedin as heroes or a true alternative to the iranian regime
they are neither
in my trips to iraq i have heard kurdish sunni shia christian turkman leaders and others complain about the role of the people's mujahedin as a tool of saddam hussein in the nineteen eighty-eight anfar campaign which culminated in massacres such as halabja
that is what the iraqi delegation which was here this week also confirmed to us while assuring us that the iraqi constitution binds the government of iraq to fully respect the human rights of the residents of camp ashraf who with the help of unhcr and icrc wish to leave for iran or any other destination or wish to stay as political refugees abiding by the laws of iraq
we must understand the reluctance of the iraqi government to let camp ashraf continue to be a nuisance to their good neighbourly relations with iran
for iraqis iran cannot be wished away
it is there
it is a powerful neighbour
it is true that the people's mujahedin are no longer on the terrorist list but they are still an opaque cult which brutalises those of its members who wish to defect
above all the people in camp ashraf are human beings whose human rights have to be respected irrespective of the fate of the organisation itself or of its past
they are to be treated under the nineteen fifty-one refugee convention and no one i repeat no one should be forced to return to iran
but let us make one thing clear
this resolution is not about the iranian regime which has been repressing its people mismanaging the country and destabilising the middle east for decades
anyone who presents a vote for the pse and green amendments which aim to balance the tone of this resolution as a vote for the iranian regime is either arguing in bad faith or has simply run out of arguments
the spirit of our amendments is quite simple
we want to present the whole picture of human rights violations and threats in and around camp ashraf
for example we request that all camp ashraf residents be allowed to be interviewed by the icrc and unhcr at a neutral location and without people's mujahedin officials in attendance in order to clarify their real wishes
also we must call on the mujahedin leadership to stop controlling the lives of the residents of camp ashraf namely by not letting them leave the camp
above all we express our concern about the reported practices of mental and physical manipulation and severe human rights violations within the cult
in short this is about the individual human rights of the people in camp ashraf
let us have these people and their human rights in mind when we vote
