Protest and information desk
No deals with the Iranian Mullahs!
Wednesday, January 28th 2009, 8.00 - 10.00 AM
in front of Hotel Savoyen, Rennweg 16, 1030 Vienna
From January 27th to 29th the "European Gas Conference" will take place at the hotel Savoyen in Vienna. This conference is sponsored mainly by OMV and Siemens. According to the conference schedule, one session will deal with "Opportunities for cooperation with Iran".
We protest the systematic efforts of the companies participating that try to undermine a broadening 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, which this year celebrates 30 years since its founding.
The further development of economic relations with Iran means Austria and Europe becoming dependent on a regime such as the Iranian one, which uses oil and gas revenues for both its fight against the West and for suppressing its own population. Iran’s support of the terrorist organization Hamas is a major reason why neither peace nor stability find a place in the Middle East. The regime in Tehran helped the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood by giving them millions of dollars, arms and military training for their jihad against Israel. Any trade with the Iranian regime constitutes financing of international terrorism. The Iranian killer commandos have not only operated on their own territory in the past. In 1989 in Vienna, for instance, they murdered Abdel Rahman Ghassemlou, the General Secretary of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, and his companions, without ever being brought to justice by an Austrian court.
The proximity in time of this conference to the international day of Holocaust-remembrance casts a damning light on the participating companies, some of them, such as Siemens, belonging to the profiteers of forced labor during the era of National-Socialism. While the world remembers the liberation of Auschwitz on January 27th, energy companies are discussing in Vienna how business relations with an antisemitic regime such as the Iranian one can be expanded. This regime organizes conferences on Holocaust denial, threatens Israel for 30 years with annihilation, and is now seeking to achieve its goals through a nuclear program.