Camp Ashraf, 50 miles north of Baghdad, is home to 3,400 Iranian dissidents, including 1,000 women, all members of the Iranian opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organization (PPO) of Iran, living as political refugees for nearly 3 decades and under the Fourth Geneva Convention after 2003. My name is Maryam Zoljalal, 28, and I am one of these women. Due to the oppression of my people in Iran by the ruling mullahs’ regime, I left my life and education in Sweden and relocated to camp Ashraf in Iraq. I have lived in Ashraf for the last 10 years for the freedom of my people, being the voice of the oppressed women of my country. Currently I spend part of my time as a nurse in the Camp Ashraf clinic.
• Maryam in her clinic at Camp Ashraf. •
Camp Ashraf is a small city in Iraq and its residents are mainly Iranian intellectuals – educated in various Iranian universities, as well as U.S. and European countries, all opposing the religious fascism ruling Iran. While cherishing life and family, they devoted themselves to bringing freedom and democracy to Iran, and by coming to Ashraf, joined a resistance for a better future and democracy for their country. Ashraf is a small democratic society where women have key leadership roles. They have become the mainstay for Iran’s new generation to resist and persevere and also confront the mullahs’ dictatorship and oppression.
The Iranian regime has used every opportunity to terrorize and oppress Ashraf residents, especially in the past two decades. My mother, Efat, was gunned down in an Iranian regime’s Quds Force terrorist attack in Baghdad on May 17, 1995. I loved her very much.
After the occupation of Iraq in 2003, residents of camp Ashraf were granted the status of protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention, legally obligating the U.S. government to protect them. However, after 2009 when security of Camp Ashraf was handed over to the Iraqi government, an all-out and inhumane siege has been enforced on Camp Ashraf residents under Prime Minister Maliki’s orders, at the behest of Tehran’s mullahs. This siege is endangering and jeopardizing the simple daily needs of Ashraf residents, especially to medical care. Former Iraqi National Security Advisor Moaffaq al-Rubaii, shortly after the Iraqi government gained control of Ashraf, said they intend to make life for the residents of Camp Ashraf “intolerable.”
During the 15 month-long siege of Camp Ashraf, including blockade on everyday needs and fuel to be delivered to the camp, a severe limitation has been placed on access to medicine and urgent medical services, especially for women, causing a status of crisis in some cases. Among the 1,000 women in Camp Ashraf, at least 541 of them need medical specialists, although they have been deprived of this care for months. 90 of them have critical cases and finally, seven of them are in urgent need of special medical care. At the current status, none of the women patients in Ashraf receive appropriate medical services due to the limitations implemented by the Iraqi authorities. A number of these women are suffering from cancer and need imperative care. There are also patients suffering from cancer whose cases, due to the medical limitation placed on Ashraf, are recognized belatedly and are either no longer treatable or are cared for within very difficult conditions. Some of the patients are in danger of losing their vision.
The above mentioned are only a glance at the small portion of the difficulties for the women of Ashraf. These inhumane measures are all part of the Iranian regime’s suppressive conspiracies against its main opposition. The goal of Tehran’s mullahs and their allies in the Iraqi government is to suppress and annihilate the camp and its residents, especially the women.
Following the latest political developments in Iraq, and the Iranian regime and its proxy’s severe setback in the recent elections, threats against Ashraf residents are on the rise. The Iranian regime is furiously trying to take back the momentum of establishing the next government, gained by democratic and nationalistic forces, and maintain its dominating influence in Iraq. Due to the Iraqi people’s wide ranging resistance to the Iranian regime’s interference in their country, odds of such a plan are very slim. Therefore, threats against Ashraf residents, before the formation of a new government by nationalists and anti-Iranian regime forces, have raised international concerns. Many human rights organizations around the world, European and N. American MPs have insisted on these worries regarding the residents of Ashraf. Along with the majority of parliamentarians in the UK, Norway and Finland, the majority of the US Congress, in Resolution 704, with 230 sponsored to this day, have called on President Obama and the UN to play a more effective role in protecting Ashraf residents. Any hesitation and wavering by the US administration and the UN, in acting more decisively regarding the protection of Ashraf residents, will result in a human catastrophe in this camp.
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