Tuesday, January 27th 2009

Demonstration against business with Iran in Vienna on Wednesday

STOP THE BOMB announces protest at "European Gas Conference"

The STOP THE BOMB coalition, speaking out against doing business with the Iranian regime, will protest on Wednesday, January 28th, against engagement of new business with the Iranian regime at the "European Gas Conference" in Vienna. At the conference, which is taking place from January 27th until January 29th in Hotel Savoyen, Rennweg, Vienna, and is sponsored decisively by OMV and Siemens, according to the program "possibilities of cooperation with Iran" should be discussed.

STOP THE BOMB spokesperson Simone Dinah Hartmann condemns systematic efforts to thwart extension of sanctions against the Iranian regime: "In light of OMV's planned billion Euro deal that even isn't supported by the Austrian foreign minister anymore, and its work on the Nabucco pipeline project that according to the current planning would only become profitable if Europe became dependent on Iranian gas, OMV would become a main sponsor of the Iranian regime. Siemens too has been a main trading partner of the Ayatullahs’ dictatorship." Instead of continually financing this dictatorship, a sharp policy of sanctions would be necessary to warp the regime in Tehran from its nuclear program.

Wolfgang Neugebauer, vice president of the Action against Antisemitism in Austria and one of the prominent first signers of the STOP THE BOMB petition against business with the Iranian regime, calls attention to the closeness of the conference to the international Holocaust Memorial Day: "Business with an antisemitic regime like the Iranian, which threatens Israel with extinction since 30 years, is anyway reprehensible. But it becomes particularly abominable, when consultations on continually financing of the Iranian dictatorship, which has organized Holocaust denial conferences, take place only one day after the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz."

During the entrance of OMV-CEO Wolfgang Ruttenstorfer at the conference, STOP THE BOMB will be present with an information desk on Wednesday, from 8:00 AM, at Rennweg 16, and hold a demonstration against business with the Iranian mullahs.