The Baroness has for more than twelve years cooperated with Iranian authorities and received direct and indirect funding and support from the Iranian government for her efforts to supposedly provide humanitarian aide to refugees from Iraq who fled to Iran during the Iran-Iraq war.
However, it seems that the refugees mostly formed Iranian funded groups such as Hakim’s force, who took refuge in Iran and were trained and funded by Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and the Iranian regime’s extra-territorial Qods Force, believed responsible for coordinating parts of the insurgency in Iraq.
As an MEP she actively lobbied for Iranian interests with European governments and political parties. The Baroness played an instrumental role in brokering the inclusion of the PMOI in the EU terror list as part of a bargain with Tehran.
Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne took her seat as a member of the House of Lords in the United Kingdom Parliament in 1997, Baroness Nicholson is a famed apologist of the Iranian regime, and a “good friend” of some top officials in the Iranian government.
In a debate in the House of Lords on 22 June 1999 she defended Iran’s leaders against charges of violating the human rights of women, a fact attested to by 51 UN condemnations of Iran’s human rights violations. She stated that: "The Iranian women who worry me most strongly both inside and outside Iran are members of the Mojahedin Khalq Organisation, the anti-government terrorist group. It consists of 10,000 women who train in camps inside Iraq.”
The Baroness did never criticised the Iranian government for its many abuses of human rights; nor for its support of terrorism throughout the Middle East and beyond; nor for its suppression of the Iranian people.
In a meeting in Brussels on 19 March 2002, held on the initiative of the regime and attended by then Tehran’s deputy foreign minister, Emma Nicholson said that she would ask the EU to declare the PMOI as a terrorist group.
Baroness Nicholson issued a press release on 3 February 2003, on the eve of the Gulf War and claimed to have passed evidence to Hans Blix that Iraqi WMD were being hidden in “MKO bases.”
Baroness Emma Nicholson was quoted in Tehran on 13 February 2003, on one of her numerous trips to Iran, as saying: “Here, our debates on Iraq have been attended by known members of the MKO recently… The MKO have thousands of members inside Iraq and thousands outside… These people are a threat to world security. This is Saddam's private, international terrorist army, working against us all… For the sake of our citizens' and for global safety I urge far greater security attention is paid to the MKO. War or no war, the criminals who make up the MKO kill and destroy the innocent.”
Baroness Nicholson in an interview with Radio Farda on 18 April 2003, openly and hatefully engaged in incitement for the wholesale killing of Mojahedin members and dissidents in Iraq on the eve of the Gulf War: “I welcome bombing the bases of MKO by coalition forces and I warn the world that this group should be destroyed, otherwise they’ll start their activities from another place in the world.”
Claims of WMD in Iraq later proved to be totally false, but Baroness Nicholson was adamant at the time that her “impeccable sources” had provided clear information on the find, part of a string of allegations, that set the stage for the bombing of neutral Iranian resistance bases in the course of the war, and led to the death of scores of innocent Iranian dissidents.
The U.S.-led occupation authority disarmed Badr Brigades following the overthrow of the Hussein regime.
Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt told a 27 January press conference in Baghdad (http://www.cpa-iraq.org) that intelligence indicates that between 3,000 and 5,000 anticoalition militants are currently operating in Iraq. Kimmitt added that 5 percent-10 percent of the militants are foreign fighters. "The vast majority of them we still believe are homegrown anticoalition elements, possibly former regime elements, possibly disenfranchised youth," he said. (Kathleen Ridolfo)
According to the report, a senior commander of the unit told a "Sunday Times" reporter that the unit employed members of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq's (SCIRI) armed wing, the Badr Brigades. He also said that armed Badr members had assisted the unit in "dangerous" missions. A number of prisoners were seen during a visit to the police intelligence headquarters in Al-Basrah, many of whom had reportedly been left handcuffed and blindfolded for four or five days.
An unnamed spokesman for Britain's 20th Armored Brigade told the newspaper that the force is officially known to the coalition as the "special operations department." "We know there are certain ways of the past that have to be unlearnt. If [the Police Intelligence unit] or anyone are keeping people blindfolded and handcuffed for an extended period then that is not acceptable," he said. He added that the British would not support the integration of any militias into the police force. (Kathleen Ridolfo)
Britain's Lord Brian Hutton released the findings of his investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of U.K. weapons expert Dr. David Kelly on 28 January, international media reported. Kelly committed suicide in July after he was named as the source for a BBC report claiming that the British government had "sexed up" an intelligence dossier on the threat from Iraq.
An article that appeared in the 25 January edition of Baghdad daily "Al-Mada" claims to have documentary evidence from Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO) that the regime of deposed President Saddam Hussein paid off Western and Arab countries through illicit oil sales and bribes in exchange for their support for the regime, or to help the regime obtain weapons and even extravagant materials unavailable to it under UN sanctions.
The article purports that several well-known officials, organizations, political parties, and companies benefited from the regime, including the Russian Orthodox Church and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation; Khalid Abd al-Nasir, son of the late Egyptian president; and U.K. Labour Party member George Galloway. It also includes the names of individuals and companies in Algeria, Austria, Bahrain, Belarus, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chad, China, Cyprus, Egypt, France, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Morocco, Myanmar, Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine, Panama, Philippines, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Syria, Sudan, Switzerland, Tunisia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Vietnam, Yemen, and the former Yugoslavia.
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Rferl.org - A CASE OF GENOCIDE: THE DECIMATION OF THE MARSH ARABS. By Baroness Emma Nicholson
Interview with Baroness Emma Nicholson
Basra, 25 juin 2003 (IRIN) - The British NGO Assisting Marsh Arabs and Refugees (AMAR) was founded by former British MP and current MEP Baroness Emma Nicholson in 1991 to assist Iraqi Marsh Arabs following their forced evacuation from the marshes and the destruction of their habitat in southern Iraq by Saddam Hussein.
On a trip to the region shortly after the defeat of the Iraqi army in Kuwait Baroness Nicholson was moved to launch the NGO after witnessing at first hand the acute suffering of the Marsh Arabs and the southern Iraqi Shiites in general following their abortive uprising against Saddam.
irinnews.org - Interview with Baroness Emma Nicholson
British NGO Assisting Iraqi refugees in Iran
Baroness Nicholson whose charity, Assisting Marsh Arabs and Refugees, looks after Iraqi refugees in Iran, said the cuts would make it far harder for the refugees to return home.
The Marsh Arab money was earmarked for the purchase of heavy earth-moving equipment to help to reshape the marshlands in southern Iraq, which were drained on the orders of Saddam Hussein, after the failed 1991 uprising against him.
Read more
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3249947.stm
Baroness Nicholson Assisting Marsh Arabs and Iraqi Refugees in 1991
The early months of 1991 were a horribly dark time for millions of Iraqis, including families in the vast deserts and wetlands of the south. The southern region was already in turmoil as Iraqi forces retreated from their invasion of Kuwait. And in April, the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein—who was facing the humiliation of defeat in "The Mother of all Battles"—was confronted with another problem: a Shi'ite rebellion.
Saddam's response against his own people was predictably brutal. In the provinces of Basrah, Maysan and Dhi-Qar, he ordered ground forces and helicopter gunships to crush the revolt; unspeakable violence was used against terrified men, women and children. Mass executions were commonplace; homes were torched; livestock slaughtered. In the spring of 1991 southern Iraq—a region which has seen so much conflict across the millennia—had once again become a hellish cauldron of blood and brutality.
Saddam's genocidal campaign meant thousands of refugees were on the move—heading east where the vast Iraqi marshes lay between them and the Iranian border. Family after family crowded into overloaded boats with just the clothes on their backs and a few possessions; thousands disappearing into a watery world of islands, lagoons and near-impenetrable reed-beds whose towering shoots were taller than any man.
The Islamic Republic has a long history of opening its borders to refugees, and by the blistering summer of 1991, around one hundred thousand desperate refugees were living in makeshift encampments in Iran's Khuzestan province and elsewhere along the porous border with Iraq. Many refugees were malnourished, sick from disease and injured from attacks by Saddam's forces.
"Aid agencies sounded the alarm over a growing human crisis, and when word reached me at the House of Commons in London, where I was then an MP, I travelled to Iran to investigate."
"When I got to the town of Dezful in Khuzestan province, I was shocked beyond belief. The Iranians had opened up a camp which was originally built during the Iran/Iraq war. It was full of thousands of Iraqi refugees who had been pouring over the border to find safety. They had had limbs blown off and were suffering from the effects of chemical weapons on their skins which had caused massive blistering."
In the beginning, AMAR operated out of a local office in Ahvaz, the capital of Iran's Khuzestan province—a city which had prospered from the wealth from nearby oil fields, but which had suffered badly during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.
"It soon became clear our operation would also need an office in the Iranian capital Tehran. Soon our Tehran office was busy hiring physicians and other health care professionals as well as teachers and other staff. This office also took care of storage and distribution of supplies."
http://www.amarfoundation.org/heritage/genesis.php
Baroness Nicholson was elected a Conservative Member of Parliament for Torridge and West Devon, in 1987, and was vice-chairman between 1983 and 1987. She defected to the Liberal Democrats in 1995. She was made a life peer as Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, of Winterbourne, in the Royal County of Berkshire in 1997.
Lady Nicholson became a member of the European Parliament in 1999 joining the Committee on Foreign Affairs which she was Vice President of from 2004 to 2007. She was President of the Delegation for Relations with Iraq and President of the Committee on Women's Rights of the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly.
Lady Nicholson was also a member of the subcommittee on Human Rights, the Delegation for relations with Iran and the Delegation for relations with the Mashreq Countries. She was Rapporteur for Kashmir, and in 2007 her controversial report on Kashmir was passed by the European Parliament .
In 2006 Lady Nicholson was Chief Observer of the European Union Election Observation Mission to Yemen. She was a member of European Union Election Observation Missions to Palestine (2005), Azerbaijan (2005), Lebanon (2005), Afghanistan (2005), Armenia (2007) and Pakistan (2008). In January and December 2005 she was a member of the United Nations Election Observation Missions to Iraq.
In 2009 Lady Nicholson returned to London and resumed her political work at the House of Lords. In February 2010 she founded the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Business Development in Iraq and the Regions and currently serves as its Chair. She is also a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Human Trafficking and speaks regularly on health care and education in the Middle East and Eastern Europe and business development in Iraq and its wider neighbourhood.
Iran provided shelter to Iraqi Shi'ites oppressed by Saddam.
The Iraqi premier lived in Iran for 10 years after Saddam banned all Shi'ite parties, including the Da'wa Party.
Iran gave safe haven to thousands of Iraqis during Saddam's bloody purges in southern and northern Iraq. Many Iraqis still live in Iran. The cultural and religious affinities between the two nations are very significant and can never be underestimated," the English-language Tehran Times, close to the Foreign Affairs Ministry, commented.
Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Kamal Kharazi visited Baghdad, without achieving concrete results on most pending issues, such as the exchange of prisoners of war and the signing of a formal peace treaty replacing the present ceasefire decided by the United Nations Security Council in 1989.
Iran claimed that Iraq holds some 3,000 Iranian soldiers, while Baghdad says it holds none but a handful who were involved in a regional uprising against Saddam Hussein.
Tehran has repeatedly denied Baghdad's charges that it still holds 29,000 Iraqi prisoners. Iraq says another 60,000 are missing. Iran, meanwhile, claims that Iraq still holds some 3,000 Iranian soldiers, while Baghdad says it holds none but a handful who were involved in a regional uprising against Saddam Hussein.
"Iran has in the past years unilaterally released Iraqi POWs to show its goodwill and now it is Iraq's turn to do the same," Najafi was quoted by the Islamic Republic News Agency as saying
August 14th, 2000. "We demonstrated our goodwill through the unilateral release of all Iraqi prisoners. Now it is Iraq's turn to do the same," he said, claiming that Iraq still held 3,000 Iranians.
August 13, 2000, Iran Says It Holds No More Iraqi POWs
Iran has freed all Iraqi pows
Official: No Iraqi Explanation Yet on Fate of 3,000 Iranian PoWs
IRAQ/IRAN - Tehran and Baghdad on verge of closing POWs' file
Iraqi POWs say they too are victims of Hussein - WAR IN THE GULF
The Dark and Secret Dungeons of Iraq. Horror Stories of Female Prisoners
Up to 3,000 Iraqis believed to be gagged, bound, hooded and beaten at US camps
Red Cross registers more than 3,000 Iraqi POWs
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GG19Ak01.html
The world’s largest open-air prison of the Islamic republic regime
Iran, SAVAK, and the CIA: Financial Support, training and prisons big as cities
A Big Prison: Iran, Part 1
Iran Prison Survivors Part 1-5
http://www.kanoon-zendanian.org
Crimes in prisons of Iran
#Gaza
Investing in Kurdistan, case studies Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, Executive Chairman
Baroness Nicholson's Speech to Investment Forum - Kurdistan, Kuwait, Norwegian Institute of International Affair
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