The Jewish association WerteInitiative e.V. renews, with maximum urgency, its demand for significantly tougher action against the Iranian mullah regime and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The situation in Iran has escalated dramatically. The regime is proceeding with the utmost brutality against its own population. According to reports, up to 2,000 people have been killed; electricity and the internet are being switched off in order to suppress protests and conceal crimes. This escalation makes it unmistakably clear: the Iranian regime is incapable of reform and is being fought by the Iranian freedom movement at the highest risk and at the cost of their lives. It is an apparatus of oppression that terrorises its own population and fights every form of freedom. Germany must now stand at the side of the people in Iran! Our demands are more urgent than ever as a result of the current developments. Anyone who continues to rely on restraint, dialogue formulas or political leniency strengthens a regime that systematically uses violence.
The escalation in Iran is not only a foreign policy issue – it is a security and domestic policy matter for Germany.
The mullah regime persecutes members of the opposition as far as Europe, threatens Iranians in exile, attacks Jewish and Israeli institutions and maintains networks that are also active on German soil. The repeated exertion of influence by the Iranian regime in Germany constitutes a real danger to internal security. Jews, Israelis and Iranians critical of the regime are among the particularly endangered groups in this country.
At the same time the regime is a central actor of international terrorism. Via Hamas, Hezbollah and other proxies it exports violence into the entire region, destabilises the Middle East and openly threatens the existence of Israel. This aggressive foreign policy is inseparably linked with the brutal oppression at home.
A regime that exports terror also acts within our society against freedom, security and the democratic order.
We therefore appeal once again emphatically to the federal government:
- Use all political and legal means to put the Iranian mullah regime in its place.
- End every political normalisation of a regime that systematically violates human rights.
- Campaign consistently for a comprehensive ban on the activities of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard in Germany and for its EU-wide listing as a terrorist organisation.
- Extend the monitoring of networks close to the IRGC by the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, in particular in the environment of mosques, associations and actors loyal to the regime
- Impose targeted sanctions on persons and organisations close to the regime on the basis of existing German and European legal foundations and freeze their assets
- Strengthen the protection of Iranian opposition members, Jewish individuals and institutions and Israeli targets in Germany.
- Support the Iranian freedom movement visibly, politically and diplomatically.
Germany claims to be a democracy capable of defending itself. This claim must now prove itself. Anyone who takes democracy and human rights seriously must not remain neutral towards an Islamist terror regime.
WerteInitiative e.V. stands in solidarity at the side of the people in Iran who are fighting non-violently for freedom, dignity and self-determination at the risk of their lives. Germany must not look on inactively, but must act in the spirit of a values-led policy and in the interest of its own internal security and international credibility, and resolutely stand up to Islamism and terrorism.
