"Siemens is supporting Ahmadinejad! Iran is threatening Israel!”

Göttingen/Munich
On Tuesday, 26th January, from 9 a.m. outside the Olympiahalle in the Olympia Park, Munich, near the east entrance at the north end of the Olympia Swimming Pool.

On the occasion of the Siemens AGM on Tuesday, 26th January 2010, at the Olympiahalle Munich the Society for Threatened Peoples STP (Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker GfbV) calls on Siemens to suspend its activities in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Siemens company must not sell its highly modern technology to Iran before constitutional rule is restored, human rights and minority rights are established in Iran and the threat to Israel is ended.

Since the rigged elections of last summer police and militia of the dictatorial regime of Iran have been trying to keep down the opposition majority by torture, mishandling, arrest or simply locking people away. Opposition politicians have been tortured in prisons, raped or murdered, people have been beaten to death in the street or shot. In the year 2009 alone at least 300 people have been executed.

The company of Nokia Siemens Networks, a joint enterprise of the German Siemens company and the Finnish Nokia Corp., has made a considerable contribution to the suppression of the opposition by supplying technology to Iran which makes possible a comprehensive internet surveillance. The spying equipment enables the regime to censure websites for Iranian internet users, to control individual communication on the internet and to track down critics of the regime.

The internet was and is the chief medium of the Iranian opposition since there are no independent print media or TV channels in the country. The technology supplied by Nokia Siemens Networks has contributed to the grip on power of the inhuman regime by limiting the internet communication of the opponents of the government. With the spying technology Siemens is also cooperating with Iran. The volume of trade conducted with Iran by Siemens last year amounted to some 438 million euros.

The Society for Threatened Peoples also accuses the Iranian regime of suppressing its non-Persian peoples. In the light of the Iranian atomic rearming and the threats of destroying Israel - trade with Iran for pure reasons of profit cannot be excused! These policies of the Ahmadinejad regime are torpedoing all peace initiatives in the Near East. As Germans and Europeans we must stand out against these policies.

Your contacts: Tilman Zülch at politik@gfbv.de and Dr Kamal Sido at nahost@gfbv.de