A daughter's plea: "My mother's life is in danger"

The testimony below has not been edited by FRANCE 24, and we are not able to verify its claims. The Iraqi authorities say that that there was no attack at Camp Ashraf, a camp for Iranian exiles in Iraq - where journalists are not allowed - and that its residents fought amongst themselves. However, camp residents say they were attacked by Iraqi security forces.]
 

 

On September 1, 2013, the Iraqi forces, acting upon the commands of the Iraqi Prime Ministry’s office, stormed camp Ashraf and slaughtered 52 of its residents, all of them defenseless and unarmed people, all of them protected

persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention. During that same raid, seven residents were abducted, 6 of whom are women. My mother, Mahnaz Azizi, is one of them. Since then, I’ve been struggling day and night to find and rescue her, but to no avail.

 

The only thing that I know for certain is that, every minute that she spends in the custody of Maliki’s forces, she is being subjected to torture and is under the threat of being surrendered to the Iranian regime.

 

The Iraqi government refuses to release my mother and the other six hostages. The latest information published by the NCRI states that the hostages had been kept by the Iraqi forces in a location near the Baghdad airport, and that they had later been transferred to Al-Amara, in southern Iran-Iraq border, with four helicopters belonging to the Prime Minister’s

office. The Iraqi government plans to hand them over to the Iranian regime’s consulate in Basra and Al-Amara and make the arrangements for their extradition to Iran.

 

"I call on the French government to put pressure on al-Maliki to release my mother, who has political refugee status in France"

 

President Obama, Secretary of State Kerry, the UN Secretary General, and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees must work out the release of my mother and the other hostages with their active engagement; they must prevent Maliki from handing the hostages over to Iran, where they will be further tortured and, eventually, executed. I particularly call on the French government to put pressure on al-Maliki to release my mother, since she has a political refugee status in France.

 

In protest to this injustice and inaction by all those who had made pledges to protect the residents of the camp, I have gone on hunger strike since the day of the attack, and I will remain on strike until all of the hostages are freed and UN protection forces take charge of the security of camp Liberty, since this camp has already been the target of three missile attacks.

 

The September 1st massacre has already claimed the lives of 52 innocent people. Do not let the Iraqi government raise the death toll higher than it already is. I reach out to all awakened consciences around the world for aid in this humanitarian cause.