Mitterrands Demonstrate Sympathy for Hunger Strikers

Mitterrands Demonstrate Sympathy for Hunger Strikers

Associated Press

ELAINE GANLEY

January 7, 1988

PARIS (AP) _ President Francois Mitterrand, a Socialist, and his wife Danielle publicly displayed sympathy Thursday for hunger strikers protesting the expulsion of Iranian exiles by conservative Premier Jacques Chirac.

Mrs. Mitterrand met with families of the 14 Iranians expelled, then visited the encampment of about 40 hunger strikers outside the U.N. High Commission for Refugees in suburban Neuilly.

Her husband spent half an hour with the High Commissioner Jean-Pierre Hocke and said he was ″personally and very attentively″ following the affair.

He assured Hocke of his ″complete support″ and his ″wish that rights and the respect for international conventions of which he is the guarantor prevail,″ the president’s office said.

Mitterrand has not spoken out publicly against the expulsions, but has voiced concern that human rights be respected.

Chirac denies allegations that the expulsion Dec. 8 of 14 Iranians and three Turkish Kurds, many of whom had official refugee status, was part of a deal to win freedom for French hostages held by pro-Iranian Shiite Moslem kidnappers in Lebanon.

All those expelled were described as members or sympathizers of the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran, considered to be the main Iranian opposition group.

Ten Paris hunger strikers have received medical treatment since beginning the fast just after the expulsions, according to the Mujahedeen.

They are fasting in solidarity with the exiles expelled, who were sent to Gabon in West Africa and have refused food in their Libreville hotel. Eight members of the group have been treated.

In Washington, 25 Iranian exiles were in the 23rd day of a hunger strike outside the French Embassy, and in London 23 were going without food.

The French Red Cross said Tuesday it had monitored the Paris hunger strikers since Dec. 24, with doctors and rescue workers ready to help on request. The protesters have vowed to take only tea and sugar as nourishment until the exiles are returned to France.

″We have entered the 32nd day of our hunger strike but we are determined to continue until we die or are flown back to France,″ Saeed Assadi Tari said in Libreville.

Mujahedeen spokesmen in Washington and London said later that one exile fasting in Gabon had contracted malaria and was in ″extremely critical″ condition. They said Ibrahim Tavangar was hospitalized several days ago.

Chirac and Interior Minister Charles Pasqua have said those expelled represented a threat to public order, but have declined to give details.

Domestic and foreign critics accuse France of abandoning its traditional role as a land of asylum.

Hocke said after meeting with Mitterrand: ″It is of capital importance ... that France remains scrupulously faithful to its commitments and traditions.″

The Mujahedeen claim the expulsions were part of a deal with Iran’s fundamentalist government to gain freedom for French hostages in Lebanon. They say those expelled risk being tracked by Iranian agents.

Iran acknowledges having influence with groups holding Western hostages, and it is widely believed a deal was struck under which two French journalists were released Nov. 27. Twenty-one foreigners are missing and believed kidnapped in Lebanon, including eight Americans.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s government had asked France to stop harboring its enemies.

In 1986, two weeks before two French hostages were freed, Chirac’s government forced Mujahedeen leader Massoud Rajavi to leave the country for Iraq.

Iraq has been at war with Iran since September 1980.