Tuesday, March 29th 2016

Kurds, Christians, Baha’is are persecuted in Iran - yet Austria’s Fischer to roll out the red carpet for Rouhani #RouhaniNotWelcome

Soaring executions, floggings, amputation punishments, denied access to education and employment

While Austria’s President Heinz Fischer, Chancellor Werner Faymann, the Ministers Sebastian Kurz, Andrae Rupprechter and Reinhold Mitterlehner as well as the President of the Austrian Economic Chamber (WKO), Christoph Leitl, are readying the red carpet for the Iranian regime in Vienna, the persecution of minorities in Iran continues unabated. Especially the Baha’is are under systematic attack. Christians who converted from Islam to Christianity are treated as „apostates“. They face criminalization and are threatened with execution.

"By receiving Hassan Rouhani - a pillar of the regime for decades - Austria legitimizes the brutal crimes of the Iranian regime. Doing business with this regime means to finance its policies of oppression and persecution", explains Hiwa Bahrami, who is the spokesman of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) in Austria and Germany. PDKI leader Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou was murdered by the Iranian regime in Vienna in 1989.

Amnesty International reports about the wide-spread discrimination of Baha’is, Azeris, Baluchis, Kurds, Turkmen, Sunnis, members of the Ahwazi Arab community and other ethnic and religious minorities, i.e. concerning the access to housing, water, the labor market and education. Members of ethnic and religious minorities are more likely to face criminalization for vague charges like "enmity against God" and "corruption on earth" which are punishable by death.

STOP THE BOMB, the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, the Initiative of Liberal Muslims in Austria, the Jewish Community and many others will be holding a protest rally under the Motto #RouhaniNotWelcome tomorrow, 10am, at Vienna’s Heldenplatz, Erzherzog Karl Monument. On March 31st, from 08:45am, activists will run an info desk in front of the Chamber’s Economic Forum Austria-Iran.