Press Conference
Oppression in Iran - What Role for Human Rights in Germany's Future Foreign Policy?
Time: Thursday, December 9, 2021 | 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Location: live stream via Youtube (link)
Please also note our event on the topic in Hamburg on December 10.
Click here to read our virtual press kit
The focus will be on human rights violations in Iran, especially Ebrahim Raisi as the newly "elected" Iranian president with the crimes he has committed in the last 43 years.
The common goal is to give the human rights violations in Iran a stronger voice in EU politics and to give those affected a bigger platform. For this reason IWP, together with the Landeszentrale für Politische Bildung,Mideast Freedom Forum Berlin e.V. and Menschenrechte-Einundzwanzig e.V. call on the politicians of Germany and Europe: Defend the rights of women and girls in Iran, who currently have to live under Sharia law, and save them from violence by the Iranian regime under Raisi's rule. For Iranians, their country is a matter of life and death!
Members of the press, please register at: info@kulturbrueckehamburg.de
Debate:
- Hourvash Pourkian, Initiator of International Women in Power
- Dr. Afsar Sattari, Menschenrechte-Einundzwanzig e.V.
- Dr. Matthias Küntzel, Political Scientist and Publicist
- Dr. Ulrike Becker, Mideast Freedom Forum Berlin
- Dr. Narges Eskandari-Grünberg, Mayor of Frankfurt, herself affected as a victim
- Professor Parastou Forouhar, University Mainz, artist, herself affected as a victim
- Mina Ahadi, Human Rights Activist
- Dr. Kazem Moussavi, Speaker Green Partyof Iran
- Hamid Ashtari, report on the ongoing trial of Hamid Nouri in Stockholm for his involvement in mass executions in Iran
- Shiva Mahbobi, report on the International Iran Tribunal in London
Aims and Facts:
Report on the human rights record in Iran
Demands to politicians: No more "business as usual" with the brutal Mullah regime
Virtual Press Kit
At the press conference, the inviting organizations "International Women in Power", "Mideast Freedom Forum Berlin" and "Menschenrechte-Einundzwanzig e.V." (Human Rights Twenty-One) will present joint demands to the German government, which you can then also read here.
The Mideast Freedom Forum has produced a policy paper with proposals for a new Iran policy:
"Plan B for a New Iran Policy" (link to PDF).
Menschenrechte einundzwanzig has prepared a human rights report which you can download here (PDF).
Information on the Aban Tribunal
"Human Rights and Iran" - Demands on the New German Government
In view of systematic and most serious human rights crimes in Iran, both in the past and in the present, the organizations "International Women in Power", "Menschenrechte Einundzwanzig" and the "Mideast Freedom Forum Berlin" appeal to the new German government
1) We demand that Germany join Amnesty International and the UN Special Rapporteur on Iran, Javaid Rehman, in calling for Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to be investigated under international law for his involvement in past and ongoing crimes. We demand that the German government support the establishment of an international commission of inquiry to investigate the 1988 mass executions.
2) We demand that the German government stops playing down the excessive and systematic violations of human rights in Iran as a "precarious human rights situation," as it does in the new coalition agreement, and instead publicly and firmly condemn them.
3) We demand that the German government reacts to executions and torture of opposition members with immediate sanctions against those responsible, in particular by banning them from entering the EU and Germany and by freezing their funds.
4) We demand that the German government not only shows solidarity with the democrats in Belarus, but also declares for Iran: "We stand by the people [in Iran] and support their desire for new elections, democracy, freedom as well as the rule of law and demand the unconditional release of all political prisoners."
5) We demand that the German government invites relevant representatives of the Iranian opposition and in particular of the women's rights movement to exploratory talks and to high-profile manifestations.
