On December 10, the Intelligence Minister of Iran welcomed that decision and specified : “If MKO [People’s Mudjahidines] elements surrender to Iranian officials, we will treat them in a lenient manner. Those who are not responsible for the murder of the citizens of the republic will benefit from Islamic benevolence and will be pardoned. Those who are murderers will be put on trial if they cannot satisfy their private plaintiffs”. Those lenient declarations lack credibility, especially since on December 17, President Khatami said clearly that the Mudjahidines should be extradited to Iran since their victims are Iranian.
The FIDH stresses that, whatever crimes may have been committed by the People’s Mujahidines, their rights under international law must be respected.
Since they did not take part in the war of the US-led coalition against Iraq and they were disarmed by the US forces after the fall of Baghdad, they must be considered as civilians under the Geneva Conventions of 1949.
Under article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of civilians from Occupied territory to any other country are prohibited, regardless of their motive. The expulsion of the People’s Mujahidines would consequently constitute a clear breach of humanitarian law.
In addition, the USA ratified the UN Convention against torture, which prohibits to expel, return ("refouler") or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he/she would be in danger of being subjected to torture. Since the USA exert the de facto authority in Iraq, by giving the green light to the expulsion of the People’s Mujahidines they would clearly violate their international obligation under that Convention.
Eventually, though Iraq and the US are not linked by the UN Convention on refugees, which clearly prohibits “refoulement” of a person to territories where his life or freedom would be threatened, they must nevertheless respect the right of everyone to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution (art. 14 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights). The People’s Mujahidines can therefore not be expelled to Iran or to another country that might send them to Iran afterwards.
In that regard, the FIDH welcomes the declaration of the US administrator in Irak, Paul Bremer, on 20 December, that they will not be expelled to Iran, but to three other countries which will be chosen with the UNHCR.
The FIDH and the LDDHI call on the Interim Governing Council of Iraq and the USA to fully respect international humanitarian law, and consequently abstain from transferring the People’s Mujahidines to another country. In any case, they should never been forcibly sent back to Iran, where their security and their life would clearly be in danger, and where they would hardly benefit from the right to a fair trial.