
By Struan Stevenson
For the Iranian opposition members trapped in Camp “Liberty”, near Baghdad Airport, the name of their tiny compound has become a sick joke. These refugees are the final remnants of a substantial community numbering almost 4000, that occupied a vast sprawling enclave called Camp Ashraf, 60 miles north of Baghdad in Diyala Province. They fled to Iraq following a vicious pogrom in the 1980’s which saw over 120,000 of their People’s Mojahedin’s Organisation of Iran (PMOI) movement executed by the theocratic Iranian regime. They built Camp Ashraf into a large, thriving city with parks, streets, factories, a library, museum, university and accommodation and they lived there in harmony with the local Iraqi population.