Iraq-Based People's Mujahideen Fight Extradition to Iran
May 21, 2004
World Markets Research Centre
Kate Luxford
Umbrella exile Iranian opposition party the National Council of the Resistance of Iran (NCRI) has said that some 3,800 members of its Iraq-based military wing, the People's Mujahideen, must not be extradited to Iran, where they will face torture and execution.
The fighters have been detained by the US in Camp Ashraf, north of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, since the coalition invasion of Iraq in 2003. In a press conference in London (UK) yesterday, the NCRI said that the People's Mujahideen's legal status must be clarified before the transfer of power to an interim Iraqi government on 30 June.
The party has won support from British MPs and human rights lawyers, who in January protested against the decision to expel the People's Mujahideen from Iraq and called for it to be removed from the US's list of terrorist organisations, declaring it 'an essential part of the drive to halt the advance of fundamentalism in Iraq and the region'. Before its disarmament and containment by the US-led forces in Iraq, the group had an estimated 5,000 heavily-armed fighters, but the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) decided last December to expel the group.
Significance: The NCRI and its supporters have said that the Iraqi government wants to expel the People's Mujahideen to placate Iran. While that may be true, the group is also unpopular within Iraq, given its long-standing alliance with the toppled regime of Saddam Hussein. Nevertheless, the US may well exert its influence to prevent the group's extradition - Washington has in the past been accused of grooming the group as a proxy fighter against Iran.
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I know MEK is listed as a terrorist group by U.S., but they can't send them back to Iran where they'll be tortured and killed. We can't allow that.