Blood on our hands?

Published: 27th May, 2011

• I WAS relieved to learn that Iranian refugees camped outside Amnesty’s head office  have given up their hunger strike (MP’s support ends asylum seekers’ hunger strike, May 13). If reports about how they came to be refused asylum are anywhere near right we should be thoroughly critical of our country.

Camp Ashraf, in northern Iraq, is the refuge of more than 3,000 Iranian dissidents. In the aftermath of the Iraq invasion the US guaranteed their safety but now that guarantee has been shamefully withdrawn, leaving them vulnerable to an Iraqi government under pressure from the Iranian regime to destroy Camp Ashraf. 

These defenceless dissidents have been subject to torture and attacks by Iraqi forces who, on April 8, went in with tanks, leaving 23 dead and more than 300 injured. 

In relation to the dissident Iranian asylum seekers in the UK, this proves beyond doubt the sort of consequences that await them should they be forced to return to Iran. Our system of investigating asylum pleas must err towards the humanitarian even if only to avoid having blood on our hands.
Richard Lewis
Oakley Road, N1