Mr. Kavoussi was registered as a refugee by the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees after escaping from dreadful conditions in Iran. At the time of arrest, he had gone to Turkish police in Agri in the company of a UNHCR lawyer to officially register himself.
In telegrams to the UN Secretary General, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Special Representative of the UN Human Rights Commission, Mr. Massoud Rajavi, the President of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, strongly condemned the expulsion of Mr. Kavoussi as trampling upon the recognized principles of human rights and a blatant violation of the sacred right to asylum.
Noting that the action will doubtless lead to the arrest, torture and execution of Mr. Kavoussi, Mr. Rajavi called for their immediate intervention to undertake appropriate measures to save Mr. Kavoussi's life and relocate him in a European country. He added that extraditing Mr. Kavoussi to a regime, condemned just two days ago for the 37th time by the United Nations, was tantamount to signing his death decree.
Mr. Rajavi recalled that in the years past, he had repeatedly called on Turkish authorities to guarantee, consistent with the internationally recognized principles, the safety and security of Iranian asylum seekers in Turkey. Instead, he said, we keep receiving more and more news of deportation, expulsion and harassment of Iranian dissidents and refugees in that country. In the mean time, the regime's diplomat-terrorists have turned Turkey into a hunting ground for Iranian oppositionists by taking advantage of diplomatic resources and facilities.
On February 20, Mrs. Zahra Rajabi, an NCR member who had traveled to Turkey to assist Iranian refugees, was assassinated, along with Mr. Ali Moradi, by the Khomeini regime's terrorists who were acting under the direct command and supervision of the mullahs' embassy in that country.
Mr. Rajavi said: The silence and inaction of pertinent Turkish authorities act as a green light for terrorist operations against my compatriots, including their abduction, torture and murder. What is more, for some time now, the mullahs' terrorism has affected Turkish intellectuals and foreign diplomats in that country as well.
The NCR President called on the UNHCR and other international human rights organizations to urge the Turkish government to provide protection for Iranian asylum seekers and refrain from pressuring them. He also appealed that they provide the possibility to relocate these asylum seekers to other countries as quickly as possible.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran - Paris April 26, 1996
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