ICRIR Call for International Protest against UNHCR’s Violations of the Rights of Iranian and Other Refugees in Turkey

The International Coalition for the Rights of Iranian Refugees Calls for International Protest against UNHCR’s Violations of the Rights of Iranian and Other Refugees in Turkey THIS WEEKEND, December 18 or 19

The United Nations, and specifically the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), is guilty of massive human rights violations against Iranian and other refugees in Turkey. Christian asylum-seekers are mocked for their beliefs by UNHCR interviewers. Torture victims with visible and documented wounds are being called liars, and battered woman are being turned away. Asylum applications take far too long to process, living conditions for asylum-seekers are untenable, Iranian refugees in Turkey are subject to abuse and violence by both Turkish police as well as agents of the Islamic Republic, and many refugees are denied official status without cause.

– The UNHCR refuses to follow its own mandate, and chooses to ignore its own definition of who is an asylee or refugee.

– The UNHCR remains silent, not lifting a finger to help, while Iranian refugees are abused by Turkish authorities that have illegally incarcerated them, that have bussed UNHCR-recognized refugees back to the Iranian border and forced them to leave Turkey at gunpoint, and have even murdered Iranians seeking sanctuary at the borders and buried them in mass graves.

– UNHCR’s unremitting violations of the human rights of Iranian refugees results either in their being forced back into the grasp of the Islamic Republic regime, which wants to imprison, torture and even execute them, or requires that the asylum-seeker and their family lives without rights of any kind in Turkey for years awaiting their status.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

We call Iranian and non-Iranian human rights supporters and supporters of refugee rights as well as asylum-seekers and refugees to join or organize a demonstration in support of Iranian and other asylum-seekers in Turkey THIS WEEKEND, December 18 or 19. If your city has a UN office, the demonstration should be held there. If there is no UN office in your city or town, hold your demonstration in a in public location with a lot of visibility, to maximize the number of people exposed to the message of the protest. ICRIR will disseminate flyers that organizers can distribute to the public at their action.

We do not tolerate the UN Refugee Agency’s continued blatant violations of the human rights of Iranian refugees under threat of persecution. Our demands are their demands:

1. Given the objective conditions in the Islamic Republic of Iran, we demand that UNHCR immediately recognize Iranians fleeing their country as prima facie refugees and confer refugee status on them as soon as asylum-seekers cross the Iranian border.

2. Until our demand for prima facie refugee status is implemented, we demand that UNHCR take immediate steps to ensure that the status determination procedures are efficient, fair, and transparent, and that UNHCR and its affiliated organizations are accountable to asylum-seekers.

An open letter from the International Coalition for the Rights of Iranian Refugees to the UNHCR containing the details of these demands can be found here.

Members of the International Coalition for the Rights of Iranian Refugees include International Federation for Iranian Refugees, the Iranian Refugee Action Network, the Iranian Refugee Amnesty Network, Mission Free Iran, and TDCAU.

The confirmed list of participating cities will be updated regularly:

ENGLAND
London
Details forthcoming

GERMANY
München
Date: Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Time: 13.00
Place: Winzererstr./Schellingstr. vor dem bayer. Sozialministerium (U2 Josephsplatz), Demo zur CSU-Parteizentrale
Organizer: Karawane München
Contact: Petra Plötz on Facebook

UNITED STATES
Los Angeles, California
Date: Sunday, December 19, 2010
Time: 10am-2pm
Place: Federal Building: 11000 Wilshire Blvd.
Contact: Roya – roya4iran@gmail.com

Washington DC
Date: Sunday, December 19, 2010
Time: 2pm
Place: UN Information Center: 1775 K St NW
Organizer: Mission Free Iran
Contact: Maria Rohaly – 240.595.2633; maria.rohaly@gmail.com