Mr Carl Bildt
President-in-Office of the Council of the EU

Excellency,

We, the Chair and the vice-chair of the European Parliament’ Subcommittee on Human Rights, are extremely worried about Camp Ashraf residents in Iraq. [:]

As you are aware, the attacks on these defenceless and unarmed women and men of the Iranian opposition took place on 28 – 29 July 2009. In this attack 11 people were killed, many were wounded and 36 were taken by the Iraqi forces. We are also very much concerned about many Iranians who are on hunger strike for nearly 2 months.

We have recently written a letter to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, asking her to support a permanent United Nations monitoring team inside Camp Ashraf. We think that a statement by the EU Presidency, expressing support for deployment of a UN monitoring team in Camp Ashraf would be very important and would also enable the hunger strikers to feel assured about the safety of their relatives and friends inside the camp. A mention of the 36 detainees is also helpful.

We thank you in advance for this humanitarian initiative.

Yours sincerely,

Heidi Hautala, Chair of the Subcommittee on Human Rights

Laima Liucija Andrikienė, Vice Chair of the Subcommittee on Human Rights