Tuesday, July 5th 2011
Protest at Voestalpine and against the Iranian Foreign Minister
STOP THE BOMB announces protest at Annual General Meeting and during Salehi visit to Vienna
On Wednesday 6 July 2011, activists of the STOP THE BOMB coalition will take part in the Voestalpine Annual General Meeting at the Linz Design Center and ask questions on the Austrian model company's business ties with Iran. They will also inform shareholders about the group's activities in Iran in the run-up. On Tuesday 12 July 2011, STOP THE BOMB will hold a rally against the reception of the Iranian Foreign Minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, in Vienna.
In the 2009/2010 fiscal year, Voestalpine generated a turnover of 65.5 million Euro in Iran. According to own estimates, current sales still amount to several two-digit millions of Euro. Among other things, Voestalpine supplies Iran with tool steel, and its subsidiary Böhler International provides Iran with steel bars. STOP THE BOMB spokesperson, Simone Dinah Hartmann, confronts the company: "Independently of the existing, totally inadequate sanctions, no company with Iran business ties can evade the question of how it could rule out financing the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. These elite forces are responsible for the regime's nuclear weapons' and rocket program as well as the freedom movement's brutal repression and control large parts of today's foreign trade."
Hartmann announced that STOP THE BOMB critical shareholders would question the management on planned business contracts with Iran. "We also want to know whether there are transactions handled by third countries and which steps Voestalpine intends to take in order to dissolve its subsidiary VA Intertrading's joint venture with the Iranian Hanseatic Trade Trust & Shipping GmbH, a company that is included on the EU sanctions list."
With regard to the Salehi reception at the Austrian Foreign Ministry, Hartmann declares: "Already having received Manouchehr Mottaki, keynote speaker of the Tehran Holocaust denial conference, Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger will now court his successor." Before his current position as Foreign Minister Salehi was in charge of the Iranian nuclear program, which led to his inclusion in the sanction list of the European Union in 2009. Hartmann: "It is paradigmatic of the current insufficient sanctions, that the travel restrictions of the EU have been lifted in spring in order to make it possible for the Iranian Foreign Minister to visit and continue the useless dialogue about the nuclear program.
