Press release

European Parliament rejects Iraqi official's entry to Parliament for role in two Camp Ashraf massacres

 Euro MPs reveal the false reports given by Iraqi Government in the meeting

Brussels- 19 June 2012 - The monthly meeting of the Delegation for Relations with Iraq in the European Parliament, chaired by MEP Struan Stevenson, was held this morning. A large number of Iraqi Government officials from Baghdad were present, some from a special committee within Prime Minister Maliki's office, responsible for Camp Ashraf.

Several members of the delegation were from the military, including generals, colonels and intelligence officials. Among this delegation was Colonel Al-Farhan Sadiq Mohammed Katum/Kazem, who is the Iraqi Governmental head of Camp Liberty and has been summoned by the Spanish National Court for his role in the two massacres of July 2009 and April 2011in Ashraf.

Amnesty International paid tribute today to Labour politician and barrister Lord Archer of Sandwell QC, who died on 14 June 2012 aged 85. He was one of the human rights organization’s founding members.Though not directly involved in the actual launch of Amnesty International in May 1961, Peter Archer was a founding member of the original Amnesty International Committee along with Peter Benenson, Louis Blom-Cooper, Eric James and Peggy Crane, and was the movement’s Chair for a period in the early 60’s.

Popular Labour MP and peer who fought for human rights
Peter Archer was not prepared to put his name to policies with which he disagreed.

Julia Langdon, guardian.co.uk
It was thanks to the evangelical mission of Lord Soper, the Methodist socialist and pacifist who preached his beliefs at Speakers' Corner during the second world war, that Peter Archer, who has died aged 85, signed up for the crusade that formed his life. Archer, at the time a Bevin Boy digging for Britain, joined the Labour party and dedicated his career to the pursuit of international human rights in an egalitarian, ethical society.

Nicholas Randall – The Independent

Thursday, 14 June 2012 - Former MP and Minister Lord Archer of Sandwell died today aged 85, it has been announced.  The Labour peer was a retired barrister who served as solicitor general from 1974 to 1979.  As Peter Archer he was MP for Rowley Regis and Tipton from 1966 to 1974 and for Warley West from 1974 to 1992. He served in the Labour shadow cabinet in the 1980s and as an opposition spokesman on foreign affairs after being given a peerage in 1992.  Lord Speaker Baroness D'Souza announced in the House of Lords that Lord Archer had died earlier today.