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Ashraf (Geneva Convention)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reaffirming the Iranian regime's form. People who wanted to visit their loved ones are being persecuted for trying to do so. The hon. Gentleman referred to 28 February, which is an important date, because as well as the former Iranian leaders' utterances and the visitation to which he referred, the Iranian supreme leader, Khamenei, said:""The occupying military forces"—" American and United Kingdom forces—""must leave Iraq as soon as possible"—" no doubt he was waving his finger—""since every day that their departure is delayed, it will be to the detriment of people of Iraq."" That is quite menacing. He told the Iraqi President:""The mutual agreement regarding the expulsion of the Monafeqin"—" the term used by the regime to describe the PMOI—""from Iraq must be implemented and we are waiting for it."" Clearly, there is enormous pressure on the Ashraf residents, who feel beleaguered and surrounded, and other hon. Members and I will amplify how threatened they feel and the reasons for that. The backdrop is that the Iranian regime feels increasingly wobbly, which I welcome, and that has been reflected in recent provincial elections in Iran. Khamenei and Rafsanjani are putting pressure on the Iraq Government. Another name that I want to introduce is Mowaffak al-Rubaie, who is the Iraqi national security adviser—many of his utterances have a similar ring to those of Joseph Goebbels—and he said on 8 March:""It is legitimate for Iran to have such a position"—" that is, to demand that the Ashraf residents are handed over—""We therefore adopted a clear and precise policy of expelling this terrorist organisation out of Iraq and rapidly return Ashraf residents to Iran"." He continued:""These individuals have been brainwashed and we must free them from this poison. This process will be painful in the beginning but there are no other alternatives than to resort to this painful measure."" That has the ring of the early 1940s.