NCRI – U.S. Congressman Ted Poe has demanded that the US provide protection for the residents of the Liberty ‘concentration camp’ before there are returned to Ashraf as soon as possible.
He also praised the Iranian Resistance president-elect Maryam Rajavi and said there was ‘nothing more powerful than a woman who has made up her mind’ in her will to topple the ‘murderous regime’ in Tehran.
Mr Poe, a member the US Foreign Affairs Committee and chairman of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Non-proliferation and Trade, was speaking at Resistance rally in Paris on June 22.
He said: “In my former days I was a judge in Texas and I believe in justice for everyone everywhere. But if the Iranian government was put on trial, it would be found guilty. Guilty of injustice. Guilty of murder. Guilty of arrests of political and religious people. And it would be found guilty of encouraging terrorism throughout the world, especially at Camp Liberty.
“Not long ago I travelled to Iraq with members of the United States Congress. We met with President Maliki. We had one major request. We wanted to go and see for ourselves the people of Camp Ashraf and the conditions they lived in.
“And his answer was, ‘No! No! No!’. And the reason was he had something to hide. And Maliki still has something to hide in Camp Liberty. He condemns the attacks on Camp Liberty, but behind the scenes his fingerprints are all over the attacks of your friends and neighbors and relatives in Camp Liberty.
“Some may ask, ‘Why is the United States interested in Camp Liberty and those thousands of people who live there?’
‘It is simple. It is freedom. We are interested in human rights and the first, the very first human right that we all have is to live in freedom, no matter where we live in the world.
“Deep down in our soul we are made with the burning desire to live as a free people. And the people in Camp Liberty have that burning desire as well.”
He said the message to the residents of Camp Liberty was ‘Do not give up hope’.
He added: “Let me specifically talk to you daughters of democracy, you daughters of Iran. We need you in this struggle. We need you in this fight. It is for not only you, but your daughters and your sons.”
And praising Mrs Rajavi for her ‘diligence and her work’, he went on: “My grandmother, who basically raised me, used to tell me this. She said that, ‘There is nothing more powerful than a woman. A woman that has made up her mind’. And President-elect Rajavi has made up her mind.”
Mr Poe also said the election of a moderate candidate in the Iranian election did not mean there be any changes in regime.
He said: “Any time a person is put in power because the supreme leader gets to pick all of the candidates, you don’t have an election. You have a selection. And that’s what has occurred in Iran.”
He also noted that former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani had said of Camp Liberty, ‘It’s worse than a prison. It’s a concentration camp. Because in prison you get to see your lawyers’.
Mr Poe added: “In prison you get to see your family. In prison, governments do not murder the people in prison. Camp Liberty is nothing but a concentration camp. You know in Camp Liberty the people are barricaded behind the walls. The walls of fear, the walls of oppression.
“They must immediately, that means now, be moved to Camp Ashraf where they can then move to other safe places in the world. And this must be our goal. No more murders by the Iraqi government. No more outside intimidation by Iran and Hezbollah. United States’s obligation is to protect the people of Camp Liberty. Justice requires it and justice is what we do.
“The calls of freedom has been difficult, but freedom has always been difficult. It has been costly, it has been expensive. Your friends and your families, they have died for liberty and for freedom. But I tell you that freedom will come again. Our cause is right. Our motives are just. We will meet again soon I hope, with you in a free and safe Iran.”