Erfurt (dpa/th) – Thuringia’s new migration minister, Doreen Denstädt (Greens), has advocated extending the deportation freeze for refugees from Iran beyond June 2023. Denstädt said on Thursday in her first speech in the state parliament that she would campaign for this at the federal level, but also at the conference of interior ministers of the federal states. She was sworn in as Minister for Justice and Migration on Wednesday. The situation in Iran, where people are being persecuted, tortured and murdered by the regime, “should also have an impact on asylum procedures,” said Denstädt.
The state parliament expressed its solidarity with the people of Iran “who oppose the arbitrariness of the Iranian regime and are protesting against it”. A motion to this effect by the government factions Left, SPD and Greens was accepted by a majority. CDU, FDP and some non-attached MPs abstained because they did not want to support all points of the red-red-green motion. The AfD voted against it.
With the motion, Parliament called on the state government to work together with the federal government “to ensure that, in addition to the Iranian oligarchs and other responsible individuals, the “Revolutionary Guards” in particular can be effectively sanctioned as the overall organization and mainstay of the deadly regime”.