11:00 a.m., 27 Farvardin/April 16 Soon after the United Nations confirmed that at least 34 people -- all apparently members of the Mojahedin-e Khalgh Organization (MKO) -- were killed in the attack on Camp Ashraf by the Iraqi military last Saturday, Navi Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, called for a "full, independent, and transparent inquiry'' into the massacre. According to Pillay,

There is no possible excuse for this number of casualties. [...]

I am well aware that this is a contentious group, with a complicated history, but leaving them to fester in Camp Ashraf was never going to be a solution. Clearly, since they are unable to go back to Iran, and are in danger in Iraq, the solution is most likely to involve moving them to third countries. I urge governments to take the necessary pragmatic and generous steps to resolve what is an untenable situation.

The Boston Globe, in an editorial headlined "Massacre Proves the Dangers of Iran's Influence in Iraq," argued that the Obama administration will "look feckless" if it does not back Pillay's call for an independent inquiry. According to the editorial,

As the United States prepares to withdraw most, if not all, of its troops from Iraq by year's end, Iran's pervasive influence in that country becomes an ever more worrisome concern. And now a deadly assault by Iraqi security forces on an Iranian opposition group living inside Iraq -- an attack that Senator John Kerry rightly termed a massacre -- ought to set off alarms in Washington about the subservience of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to the regime in Tehran. [...]

Washington has a special obligation to demand accountability because Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived in Baghdad the day before the attack, met with Maliki, and warned of Iran's dangerous influence in the region. As if to crow over Tehran's predominance in Baghdad, the Iranian foreign minister declared a day after the killings, "We appreciate the move by the Iraqi government.''

The United States and its allies must act quickly to relocate abroad some 3,000 PMOI members still in Camp Ashraf. Toward this end, the State Department needs to remove the group from its terrorist list; it was placed there in 1997 as a goodwill gesture to facilitate dialogue with Iran. That didn't work, and it has been many years since the PMOI did anything that could be construed as terrorist.

The Boston Globe thus joins a growing number of U.S. political figures calling for the removal of MKO (also known as PMOI and MEK) from the State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations, as our columnist Muhammad Sahimi described in his Wednesday opinion piece, "Who Is Responsible for the MKO Massacre at Camp Ashraf?"

The English-language versions of the Islamic Republic's official and semiofficial media gave no coverage to the U.N. statements. "Iran Urges UN Prompt Action on Bahrain," as a Mehr headline put it, was the primary international focus:

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi has sent a letter to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, calling on the UN to take prompt action to stop the blatant violation of human rights in Bahrain.

The security forces are violently suppressing the popular uprising in Bahrain and attacking people's houses, and protesters are kidnapped and workers who have opposing views are being fired, Salehi said.

"But, unfortunately, it seems that the UN Security Council has ignored this issue and has not taken necessary measures while the council adopted different approach toward similar developments in other regional countries," he said.

Hossein Karroubi reports that he has become a fugitive. Mehdi Karroubi's son was interviewed via email by Rooz. In this excerpt (translation via Green Voice of Freedom) he talks about what is going on with his parents at the moment:

It has been more than a few weeks without any news regarding Mr. and Mrs. Karroubi. Have you been provided with an update on their condition? Except for the visitations that took place under tight security, have they [the ruling government] indicated how long this situation will last? Have they defined any conditions under which the current situation might change?

The truth is that we have not been informed of any so called conditions. My mother and father are apparently under the control of the Intelligence Ministry and defining conditions is outside the jurisdiction of the Intelligence Ministry. Of course we must not forget that the head of the Judiciary himself has claimed that dealing with the reformists and the so called "heads of the sedition" is outside the realm of his responsibility. In other words, no one, not even the head of the Judiciary is willing to accept responsibility for any incident occurring after the house arrest and if restrictions are imposed or continued, it is higher ranking officials that must therefore provide guidance, make decisions and define conditions. The question that remains unanswered is whether discussing any so called "conditions" is of relevance when the individuals in question are under "detention" and an illegal and inhumane act has been committed. In my opinion the issue of so called conditions becomes mute when the reality is so dark and dire. As we Iranians say, "Is there any color darker than black?"

A current university student and another who was expelled from his school for organizing reformist events spoke with InsideIRAN's Arash Aramesh about the current state of the campuses. In the following excerpt, Ali, who attends Tehran's Amir Kabir University, describes how the situation there has transformed over the past year:

How are things on your campus now? Has the situation changed?

It is much worse. They are firing old, experienced professors and replacing them with regime loyalists who went to college because of their loyalty. They are so uneducated and they teach here. And they want to change the course material, too. We are in a technical field so we are not going to be affected, but our friends who study social sciences are in a state of uncertainty. They don't know what is going to happen to them.

What do you mean by changing the curriculum?

The government, especially after Khamenei gave that famous speech last summer when he blasted the educational system and called for changes, has decided to get rid of foreign and Western thought in social sciences and replace it with Islamic doctrines. We don't know what is going to happen but you certainly won't be able to take course on Max Weber anymore! The regime thinks that social sciences are evil and they poison the mind. So they want to get rid of it all. It is like a new Cultural Revolution, but this time, instead of shutting down the universities, they are trying to kill our spirits.

Copyright © 2011 Tehran Bureau