Thursday, May 4th 2017
STOP THE BOMB warns companies of dangers of doing business ahead of Austrian Economic Chamber’s Iran trip
Terror financing, human rights abuses and the Revolutionary Guards’ control of the economy among top risks
On occasion of the Austrian Economic Chamber’s (WKO) upcoming trip to Iran from 6th to 10th of May, STOP THE BOMB warns the involved companies of legal and financial risks. The campaign points at still existing and possible new sanctions as well as at the terrorist and antisemitic nature of the Iranian regime. Companies like OMV, KTM, Brucha GmbH, Ginzler GmbH, Voith Digital Solutions, Deltabloc, Leobersdorfer Maschinenfabrik, Compact Milling Systems, MTA Messtechnik, Schnabl Stecktechnik, Porr, Starlinger GmbH, Rosenbauer, Greiner-Holding, Keba AG, the automobile clusters of Upper Austria und Styria including Magna, AVL, TCM, Miba, Engel GmbH and others have recently expanded their Iran activities, according to the WKO or by their own account. Hueck Folien is even in a bid to produce new banknotes for the Iranian terror regime.
Due to Iran’s terrorist activities (e.g. the financing of Hizbollah, Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad), its involvement in money laundering, and because of the regime’s brutal human rights abuses, U.S. and EU sanctions are still in place even after the nuclear deal, affecting Austrian companies. While according to media reports last year U.S. authorities are investigating whether Bank Austria violated Iran sanctions, Raiffeisen and Oberbank still want to press ahead with their Iran business.
The U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives are currently working on new sanctions, like the "Terror-Free Skies Act" (addressing the support for terrorism by civil Iranian airlines like Iran Air, a codeshare partner of Lufthansa and Austrian Airlines) and the "IRGC Terrorist Sanctions Act of 2017", which would designate the IRGC in its entirety as a terrorist entity. The U.S. State Department announced that Iran continues to sponsor terrorism, and that the nuclear deal will undergo a review. In April the European Union announced the extension of existing Iran sanctions, including a ban on exports to Iran of "dual use" goods.
"By doing business with the Iranian regime companies support an Islamist dictatorship and an antisemitic regime that threatens to destroy Israel and whose 'Supreme Leader' denies the Holocaust. In Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian territories, the Iranian regime destabilizes the Middle East and is co-responsible for the refugee wave to Europe. Under the supposedly reformist President Hassan Rouhani more Iranians have been executed than under his predecessor Ahmadinejad," says STOP THE BOMB’s Research Director Stephan Grigat.
