Against the background of the Iranian government’s violent action against the nationwide protests, Hamburg’s Senator for the Interior, Andy Grote, is in favor of a nationwide ban on deportations to Iran. He is confident that the interior ministers of the federal states will come to an agreement with the federal government at their autumn conference this Thursday and Friday in Munich, said the Social Democrat and emphasized: “The leadership in Iran is one of the most archaic and brutal oppressive regimes in the world.”
He will therefore work to ensure that deportations to Iran are suspended nationwide for the time being – with the exception of criminals and perpetrators who pose a threat to Germany. According to Grote, Hamburg has not carried out any deportations to Iran in recent years.
The trigger for the ongoing unrest in radical Islamist-led Iran was the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died in a hospital in Tehran in mid-September. Amini had previously been arrested by the vice squad on charges of violating strict hijab regulations on women’s clothing.
According to the interior authorities, more than 10,000 people with Iranian citizenship live in Hamburg. Therefore, the solidarity with the recent protests in Iran is particularly great there, said Grote. “A great many people who fled Iran have found protection and a new home in Hamburg.”
In any case, the Hanseatic city plays a formative role in the close German-Iranian economic relations. The friendship and trade treaty of 1859 made it possible for Iranian merchants to establish themselves in Hamburg more than 160 years ago. The Elbe metropolis thus has one of the most traditional communities of Iranian origin in Europe, the second largest on the continent after London.
Meanwhile, Iranian and Hamburg students have written an open letter on the current situation in Iran. As a spokeswoman for the AStA of the University of Hamburg announced on Thursday, the letter was sent to the first mayor Peter Tschentscher (SPD) and the second mayor Katharina Fegebank (Greens) as well as “to all members of the Bundestag – except for those of the AfD parliamentary group”.
In the three-page letter, the authors call on German and European politicians to stop deportations to Iran immediately and to close the Islamic Center Hamburg (IZH) “as long as it cooperates with the Iranian regime and extremist and Islamist organizations”.
The controversial IZH has recently ceased to be a member of the Islamic umbrella organization Shura – and is therefore no longer part of the state treaty with the city of Hamburg. The Hamburg Office for the Protection of the Constitution considers the IZH, whose sponsoring association runs the Blue Mosque on the Outer Alster, to be an outpost of the Iranian mullahs’ government in Europe, with “Iranian Islamists” at work here.
In their open letter to politicians, the students also call for stricter sanctions against the Islamic government, the Revolutionary Guard and their families, and for economic cooperation with the current Iranian government to be stopped. “This includes examining companies in Germany and the EU that cooperate with the Iranian regime and have approved or actively contributed to the foreclosure of the Internet in Iran,” emphasize the students, specifically naming the company Softqloud in Meerbusch, North Rhine-Westphalia .
Other demands include the freezing of accounts of members and relatives of the regime and the refusal to grant residence permits “to members of the regime or the Revolutionary Guard and people who cooperate with them, as well as their families – even if they apply for study purposes”. According to this, Iranian diplomats should also be checked and observed, since they do not represent society in Iran, but the regime.
The letter ends with the words: “We want to raise our voices against the injustice taking place in Iran and protect democratic values.” to support their revolution against a repressive, violent regime”. The situation requires informing about current events, going out on the street and being loud. “The regime should know that every crime will also be seen outside of Iran and will have consequences,” the students write in their paper.
