The demonstrators in Iran want regime change. Top officials in the Foreign Office, on the other hand, would prefer the mullahs to make concessions and stay in power. Foreign Minister Baerbock is now threatening the government with further sanctions.
Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has harshly criticized the Iranian government and announced that further sanctions will be imposed on the regime in Tehran. “Anyone who beats up women and girls on the street, abducts people who want nothing more than to live freely, arbitrarily arrests them and sentences them to death is on the wrong side of history,” said Baerbock of the “Bild am Sonntag”.
The Greens politician announced that the European Union would impose entry bans on those responsible for suppressing protests and freeze their assets. “We say to the people of Iran: We will stand by you!” The calls from the people on the streets of Iran for self-determination are deafening. Only the Iranian government is playing deaf. But “our solidarity will not slacken,” said the Foreign Minister.
According to information from the “Bild” newspaper, Baerbock’s course towards Iran is not without controversy, the newspaper writes of a split in the ministry. Top officials in the department responsible for relations with Iran assessed a change of power in Iran as a “disaster” that could result in “instability throughout the region,” according to the “Bild”. Above all, the role of the think tank “Carpo” under the leadership of the German-Iranian Adnan Tabatabai, who propagates cooperation with the regime, is decisive.
The protests against the Islamic system triggered by the death of 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini are continuing and are now in their fourth week. Night after night, people took to the streets in the country’s cities to confront the security forces, who reportedly also fired live ammunition. The human rights organization “Iran Human Rights” has now counted 185 confirmed dead, half of them in the poor province of Sistan and Balochistan, which is mainly home to members of the country’s Sunni minority. Thousands of people have been arrested in connection with the protests.
