Wednesday, March 1st 2017
Austrian Vice Chancellor’s "road map": 400.000 euros for cooperation with Iran’s Islamist regime
Austria’s cooperation partners involved in oppression of students and Holocaust denial
According to plans of Austrian Vice Chancellor Reinhold Mitterlehner, the Iranian terror and executioner regime is set to become a preferred science partner for Austria. The program "Impulse Iran Austria" for academic cooperation between Austrian and Iranian institutions is funded with 400.000 euros of taxpayers’ money. The Iranian regime, however, does not promote freedom of science, but "Islamic" science. The Bahai, a persecuted minority in Iran, are barred from higher education, critical students and teachers are harassed and expelled from university. Mitterlehner and Iran’s Vice President also signed a number of cooperation agreements this week based on the "Economic Relations Roadmap 2016-2020" in order to intensify the economic cooperation with Tehran.
Kazem Moussavi, an exiled Iranian activist whose Green Party of Iran is part of the STOP THE BOMB campaign, voices his criticism: "There are no objections to scientific cooperation with people from Iran. The reality shows, however, that scientific projects of Austrian universities and of OeAD, the Austrian agency for international mobility and cooperation, are based on exchange with the regime’s ideologically controlled universities, institutions, scientists and students."
Stephan Grigat, STOP THE BOMB’s Research Director points to the fact that partners of Austrian universities are involved in the Iranian regime’s promotion of Holocaust denial, as it was the case with a 2016 cartoon contest at the University of Isfahan, a partner university of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. "Austria’s Minister of Economy wants to ‚further deepen‘ the cooperation with a regime that - also under allegedly 'moderate' President Rouhani - openly threatens Israel with annihilation, and whose Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei - to this very day - questions the reality of the Holocaust."
