There is mounting concern that Iraq is once again descending into chaos and potential civil war, barely one year after the last American troops left the country. In recent weeks hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have taken to the streets in protests in six of the main Iraqi provinces, including Baghdad itself.

The west has failed in Iraq. After the fall of Saddam Hussein, not only has Iraq not gone towards more democracy, but the situation of human rights ha...

Catherine Ashton will be within a few kilometers from Camp Liberty in just a few days time. Can she succeed where others have failed?

I fully endorse what the U.S. has done and is doing in the two cases in China and Myanmar. Governments that oppress their own citizens don't deserve our support. But a group wrongly labeled as terrorist, and using every legal means to overturn that label, does deserve much greater consideration than it is getting.

The responsible bodies and organisations, who are delaying the safeguard of the residents of Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty, will be held accountable for every life lost and every sick person whose condition deteriorates due to the siege of medical supply and equipment that the residents are under.

For 3,300 innocent people this is a life or death situation. But the issue internationally is much broader. The fate of a great nation and future of the whole region is at the stake. It is high time to defend the rights of Iranian dissidents in Iraq. The world has a direct interest.

With the latest news that the Syrian Government has resumed its attack on the city of Homs - almost a month to the day after the UN Security Council endorsed former secretary-general Kofi Annan's Syria peace plan - the Syrian "cease-fire" could at best be described as ineffective.

When Secretary of State Clinton and all the NATO foreign and defense ministers convene in Brussels today, they will have one issue topping their agenda: the tumultuous, fragile situation in Afghanistan. With the deadline to withdraw from Afghanistan fast approaching, the enigma of finding a lasting solution has become even more perplexing.

The start of the Persian New Year on Tuesday 20 March should have been a happy occasion, but for freedom-loving Iranians in Iraq it began on a note of sadness with the death of a 44-year-old electrical expert, Amir-Mostofian.

Blaming the victim has been the strategy of oppressors as far back as anyone can remember. Now, in the ongoing struggle to protect the 3,400 Iranian dissidents trapped in Iraq, the strategy has taken an even more perverse turn - to blame those who would help the victims. This is a strategy being pursued, not just by the oppressors, but by "double agents" within the State Department.

Camp Ashraf has been home to 3400 Iranian dissidents in Iraq for the past 25 years. The residents, men and women, are members of the People's Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI/MEK), the principal Iranian opposition movement.

Imagine exchanging your home for a prison. Instead of the house you have known for decades, you must now live in a hut the size of a shipping container. You can take only the belongings you can physically carry, and must therefore leave almost everything behind.

It is time the US and the UN reciprocate the good will of Ashraf residents by guaranteeing the rights and the minimum needs of those who have gone to Camp Liberty.

At a major event in London's Queen Elizabeth II conference centre on Saturday, attended by 1,000 Anglo-Iranians, senior British jurists and MPs and US military experts called on the United Nations to intervene immediately to save the lives of 3,400 Iranian dissidents at Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty in Iraq.

A letter signed by 110 cross-party MPs and Peers was on Thursday delivered to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in Lancaster House urging him to ensure United Nations protection for 3,400 Iranian dissidents in Camp Ashraf, Iraq.

Ashraf residents must believe that theirs is a story of betrayal. It was the US, after all, that, after liberating Iraq, promised to protect them if they agreed to disarm. The US is out of Iraq, but the residents are far from safe. A second betrayal is now in the making. For a body such as the United Nations, silence in the face of oppression is nothing short of scandalous.

The last days of 2011 ended with a good humanitarian news; in theory at least. The case in point was the fate of 3300 defenseless Iranian dissidents in Camp Ashraf, Iraq.