[Farsi (PDF)]

No Business with the Mullahs!

Stop the Steiner Deal with Iran!

Call for protests and discussion event on 30 August 2008 in Siegen (Germany)

A few months ago the company Steiner (SPG Steiner-Prematechnik-Gastec GmbH) from the German city of Siegen signed a business contract to build three gas liquefaction facilities worth 100 million Euros in Iran. Hartmut Schauerte, parliamentary state secretary and a Christian Democratic Union member of the German Bundestag from the region, had lobbied for the acceleration of the conclusion of the deal. With the support from a government official this deal undermines all international efforts to put pressure on the Iranian regime and to make it stop its nuclear programme.

Yet especially in the case of Iran business interests have to be put aside. There must be no support for a regime that aims for nuclear weapons, denies the Holocaust and threatens Israel with destruction! A nuclear Iran would not only constitute an incalculable danger for Israel that must be prevented at all costs. The Iranian government is also a brutal dictatorship. Women as well as religious and ethnic minorities are being discriminated against on a systematic basis, labour unions and political opposition groups are being smashed, the press is being censored, homosexuals are sentenced to death, torture and public executions are common. Outside of the country Iran finances and arms fundamentalist Islamic and terrorist forces like Hezbollah and Hamas.

While the regime is under pressure by international sanctions, the facilities that Steiner wants to build would directly support the regime because the energy sector is by far its most important source of income and power. That’s why it was so important that the French company TOTAL and the Norwegian company Statoil recently pulled back from similar projects in Iran for political reasons.

Steiner’s deal in Iran is only one example of a common tendency and attitude among German business people and politicians. This year, trade with Iran has been increasing instead of declining, and Germany is still the most important trading partner and irreplaceable supplier of technology to Iran. The existing foreign trade laws and regulations are by far not sufficient to prevent the support of the regime by German companies. But putting economic and political pressure on the Iranian regime must be part of any serious attempt to stop its dangerous nuclear programme by non-military means.

No support for the radical Islamic and antisemitic terror regime!

·       We demand from Steiner to pull back from its business deal with Iran immediately.

·       We call on the federal government to issue targeted political and economic sanctions against the Iranian regime and to also push for corresponding sanctions on an international level.

·       We declare our solidarity with the oppositional forces in Iran and in exile who are fighting against the Islamic dictatorship and for human rights, democracy, individual freedom and secularism in Iran!

Protest rally on Saturday, August 30, 2008:

No deals with the mullahs!
Stop the Steiner deal with Iran!

3pm – 5pm, Siegen

Siegplatte, near the pedestrian zone of Bahnhofstraße

Greeting by Stephan Kramer, general-secretary of the Central Council of Jews in Germany

Inputs by Roger Bückert, Pro-Israel-Initiative “neveragain” (Siegen)

Dr. Kazem Moussavi, Green Party of Iran (Berlin)

Simone Dinah Hartmann, STOP THE BOMB –
Coalition against the Iranian extermination program (Vienna)

Jonathan Weckerle, Mideast Freedom Forum Berlin

BAK Shalom of the Linksjugend ['solid]

B'nai B'rith Europe

Alex Feuerherdt, author (Bonn) (tba.)

Further speeches and greetings to be announced soon.

Panel discussion on Saturday, August 30, 2008:

The Iranian regime, the threat to
Israel and the German Iran deals

7pm, Siegen, Siegbergstraße 1 (opposite the lower-level entrance of Karstadt)

Inputs by Roger Bückert (welcome), Dr Kazem Moussavi, Dr Stephan Grigat,
Simone Dinah Hartmann,Jonathan Weckerle. Chair: Alex Feuerherdt.

Supporting organizations:         
Pro-Israel-Initiative "neveragain" (Siegen), STOP THE BOMB - Coalition against the Iranian extermination program (Vienna), Mideast Freedom Forum Berlin, Green Party of Iran (Germany), Democatic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), Zionistische Organisation in Deutschland e.V.,  B'nai B'rith Europe, BAK Shalom der Linksjugend ['solid], Honestly-Concerned, WIZO Deutschland e.V. - Women's International Zionist Organisation, European Council of WIZO Federations (ECWF), Prozionistische Linke Frankfurt,  WADI e.V. (Frankfurt), Café Critique (Vienna), ILI - I Like Israel e.V. (Munich), Autonome Antifa Siegen, Internetportal J-Comm Jewish Community (Cologne), Jerusalem Zentrum (Berlin), Antifa ON (Innsbruck), take care (Frankfurt),  Hamburger Studienbiblothek, Antifa 3D (Duisburg), Anti Nationale Antifa Nürnberg, SPME Germany - Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, Suzan Aytekin (Editor, Vienna), Bernd Dahlenburg (Protestant Theologian & Editor), Deutsch-Israelisches Jugendforum, Suzan Aytekin (Editor, Vienna), Bernd Dahlenburg (Protestant Theologian & Editor), Deutsch-Israelisches Jugendforum, Arbeitskreis Antisemitismus (Munich), AK Left and Nation & AK Antisemitism of the Rosa-Luxemburg-Foundation, German-Israeli Society Aachen e.V., Group Morgenthau (Frankfurt), Der Berliton.de, Antifa Infoportal Magdeburg, Antifa Toscanini (Bozen)… - more will follow soon!  

Contact and press:          
Mail: info@mideastfreedomforum.org - Phone.: 030-87333417 - Fax: 030-700 143 1010