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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PRESS RELEASE CONTACT:
202-638-0066
September 18, 2007
LCHR condemns shelling along Iran-Iraq border, calls for an end to ongoing attacks
Washington, D.C. – The Leadership Council for Human Rights (LCHR) urges the international community, especially the U.S. and Iraqi governments, to protect innocent villagers living near the Iranian border from ongoing artillery attacks. The shelling by Iran, which began in mid-August, has targeted poor, rural enclaves in the mountainous Kurdish region of Northeastern Iraq. The alleged pretext for the attacks is to hit PKK and PJAK guerrilla groups along the border. Meanwhile the victims of the attacks, whose meager livelihoods depend on their livestock and land, have been forced to flee, seeking shelter in caves and tents below the line of fire.
One source reported to LCHR that 200 missiles fells during a three day period near his home village close to the Iran border, and said that the population has become desperate. Photographs of the shelling obtained by LCHR are available here.
According to a Washington Post report filed from Raniyah, Iraq, “the seemingly indiscriminate shelling has burned acres of orchards and grassland, damaged homes, killed livestock and driven about 2,500 people to abandon about two dozen villages.” A local Kurdish chicken farmer called it “the worst bombing that this area has ever seen.”
Kurdish English-language news source Soma Digest interviewed one victim, a 67-year-old woman, who said, “They destroyed all our agriculture, our animals and our houses with bombs. What do they want? Isn’t there anybody to stop them?” (for full article click here)
LCHR staff traveled to Raniyah and its surrounding villages in June 2007, interviewing women about their human rights conditions in conjunction with its local project partners. LCHR’s Iraqi partners are actively working in the area now being bombed. One local partner has reported that a village visited by LCHR was evacuated due to shelling – women in this village were featured in a Washington Times editorial earlier this summer. About these villagers, one LCHR source says, “They are living in fear of death, and there is no security for them.”
The Post reports:
“Villagers and Iraqi officials in the area say their territory is now caught up in a growing regional war made worse by deteriorating relations between Iran and the United States. Some accuse Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has close ties with Iran, of failing to protect the Kurds.” (for full article click here)
Iran’s allegations of a Kurdish “insurgency” have also led the Iranian government to establish an effective state of emergency in its Kurdish provinces, and has “enabled the authorities to arrest hundreds of opponents, including trade unionists, student leaders, journalists, lawyers and Sunni Muslim clerics without bothering about legal formalities,” U.A.E.’s Gulf News columnist Amir Taheri wrote (for full article click here).
LCHR joins the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq and Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari in demanding an end to the ongoing attacks, which threaten to further destabilize this fragile region and spark a new humanitarian crisis.
LCHR president Kathryn Cameron Porter said, “The Leadership Council for Human Rights is gravely concerned about the fate of these innocent villagers as well as the safety of its local project partners on the ground in the region. We call for immediate international action to save their lives. Their plight, if ignored, would be shamefully reminiscent of the plight of Halabja survivors, who, almost 20 years after the destruction of their town wrought by Saddam Hussein, have not received adequate recognition, support, or remediation from the international community.”
“The Kurds have historically shown themselves to be great friends of the U.S.,” Porter added. “The U.S. government has a moral imperative to act now – to turn our backs on these vulnerable people undermines U.S. credibility in the region.”
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