UN NGOs: Urgent medical care needed for Iranians in Camp Liberty, Iraq

United Nations Human Rights Council   NCRI, 29 May 2013 - Squalid conditions and lack of medical care at Camp Liberty are a matter of ’grave concern’ and need urgent investigation, four Non-governmental organizations with special consultative status in United Nations told the 23rd session of Human Rights Council. The representative of The Movement Against Racism and for Friendship between Peoples (MRAP), Gianfranco Fattorino told the UN’s Human Rights Council the lives of at least 11 Iranian refugees had been lost because they had been denied the most basic care. MRAP joined with France Libertés, the Fondation Danielle Mitterrand, International Education Development and the Women’s Human Rights International Association (WHRIA) told the United Nations: “We wish to call the attention of the Special rapporteur to the severe situation of more than 3,000 Iranian asylum-seekers in Iraq, forcibly relocated in 2012 from Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty. “Living conditions in Camp Liberty are so severe that the Working Group on Arbitrary detention described it last year, in two different opinions, as similar to those prevailing in a detention centre. “The Iraqi government prevents residents from transferring their medical equipment from Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty and the clinic suffers from serious lack of the most basic equipment and facilities so that, by no standard, the existing infrastructure could be described as a medical centre. The Iraqi authorities also prevent asylum-seekers free access to medical services in Iraq. “The living conditions at Camp Liberty remain a matter of grave concern. Based on irrefutable facts and evidence, basic rights of the asylum-seekers such as free access to medicine and medical care are frequently violated; patients are being constantly harassed by various means such as breaching the confidentiality of their relations with physicians by interference of security officers.” The appalling conditions and lack of medical care had resulted in at least 11 deaths, including residents named as Behrooz Rahimian, Mehdi Abed, Ali Ahmadi, Hamid Rabi, Mansour Kofei, Mohammad-Hossein Barzmehri and Reza Nasiri, Mr Gianfranco said. He added: “Today, the number of patients with serious ailments in Camp Liberty exceeds 800, many of whom were wounded during the two massacres in 2009 and 2011 in Camp Ashraf. “We urge the Special rapporteur on the right to health to investigate on the violations of the right to health of the Iranian asylum-seekers in Camp Liberty.”