The Hunger Strikes end.
The announcement is made.
The congratulations begin.
Victory salute.
Farzaneh Dadkhah and victory.
Punching the air.
Fatemah Khezri and Soudabeh Heidari.
Some tributes.
Coming to an end.
The 36 detainees are released from detention early on the morning of 7th October and are taken immediately back to Camp Ashraf. Observers claim the men are in poor physical health as a result of their detention.
In London, one of the sites of the worldwide hunger strikes, Iranians end their hunger strike in jubilant scenes outside the embassy of the United States in Grosvenor Square.
They spend the day congratulating each other on their success, watching a press conference that takes place in Paris formally announcing the release and preparing to take the now former hunger strikers to hospital for formal medical examination to assess their health post protest.
US embassy, London, UK. 07th October 2009.
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some background on Camp Ashraf.. more needed
09.10.2009 15:49
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Camp Ashraf is the base of a group called the 'People's Mujahedin of Iran', a leftist dissident group which organised against the Shah but also against the Islamic Republic which replaced him. Their theory was a fusion of Islamism and Marxism, their most visible tactics were armed struggle, bombing campaigns, assassination etc.
They were given bases, equipment, weapons etc in Iraq by Saddam, and fought on the Iraqi side in the Iran-Iraq war. There are allegations that they were involved in killing off opponents of Saddam. After the invasion of Iraq they disarmed and surrendered to the Americans, and were put under their protection, since they would obviously be unpopular with many Iraqis, due to their support for Saddam, but also with the Iranian regime, which would probably like to have them imprisoned or executed.
But Camp Ashraf was transferred to Iraqi control recently, and the residents are now being persecuted by the Iraqi government, hence the recent attack on the Camp.
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Can someone with more in-depth political knowledge comment further on this?
Obviously they are more than just another armed group; they must have a decent social base in order to be able to inspire these sorts of solidarity protests worldwide. What are there politics nowadays? How do they justify collaborating with one tyrannical regime (in Iraq) in order to overthrow another? Or are they a group that started with progressive values and was corrupted by the hierarchies and atrocities inherent in an armed struggle?
Tom R