Free Self-Sacrifice by Struan Stevenson Page B

the Iraqi Prime Minister – Nouri al-Maliki – was forced to allow the Iraqi doctors to perform the surgeries, and as a result, they started pressuring the residents.
    For the fifth operation I was supposed to go to Madineh Al Taleb. Seven or eight fully armed soldiers accompanied me to the operating room. When I regained consciousness, all of the soldiers were around my bed. When I asked to see my doctor, the soldiers said, “You are a prisoner and you have to go to back to Ashraf.” My doctor intervened, so I was allowed to rest for a couple of hours, after which the soldiers entered my room and said, “The ambulance is ready and we have to leave immediately.” I was brought down several flights of stairs to the entrance of the hospital, but there was no ambulance waiting.
    I waited nearly two hours in the sun for the ambulance to arrive. When the ambulance arrived there were eight people already in it. When we climbed on board there were a total of ten people inside the ambulance. One of the patients in the ambulance was Fathollah, who was suffering from stomach cancer and unable to sit down. Tencritically-ill patients in one ambulance set out towards Ashraf. The driver was driving very fast, disregarding all the speed bumps on the road. Upon reaching Ashraf everyone was in a bad shape and in a serious condition.
    At Ashraf, we were received by Dr Omar, who was actually an Iraqi officer who had been responsible for systematic mistreatment and torture of the patients, posing as a doctor. When we told him of our ordeal, he said, “At least you have it better than the Iraqi citizens!” We were then placed at the New Iraq Hospital where the Ministry of Information agents were using loudspeakers to yell profanities all night long, making rest and peace of mind for patients impossible. This was the psychological torture. Three months later, when I went to see my doctor for my next operation I found another person sitting next to the specialist. I asked him, “Who are you?” He responded: “I have orders from Dr Omar to supervise your visit so you don’t talk about politics.” Even the doctor didn’t have the authority to make him leave the room.
    Another time when I went for chemotherapy to Baghdad, my doctor gave me a series of medication for my chemo treatment so I could follow up my treatment in Ashraf. When we reached the checkpoint they confiscated my medication. It took a long time to be able to get my medication back. Another time, coming back from surgery in Baghdad, twelve people were placed in the same ambulance, one of whom was a patient with stomach cancer who had just undergone a gastroscopy procedure. He had a severe case of diarrhoea and was throwing up all the way to Ashraf. The atmosphere in the ambulance was unsanitary and intolerable. On that day Dr Omar was riding with us in the front of the ambulance, laughing all the way to Ashraf. We asked him to check the patient and he kept saying, “It is normal,” and continued to laugh at the situation.
    On several occasions when our brothers and sisters succeeded in getting an appointment through the New Iraq Hospital the guards at the checkpoint would not allow them to leave the camp to make their appointments. After months of pressure, they were allowed to leave for their appointments, but their actual departure from the camp was delayed in such a way that when they arrived in Baghdad after business hours, they had missed their appointments. I was supposed tovisit my doctor every three months; I tried to see my doctor for two and a half years but I was not allowed to visit him even once. After two and a half years I was transferred to Camp Liberty and was able to finally see my doctor. My doctor, who was very concerned, informed me that the cancer had spread and my condition had now become critical.’

 
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    Camp Ashraf and the July 2009 Massacre
    When the PMOI freedom fighters fled to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam Hussein gave them a