Berlin, 5 March 2002

To the President of the German Bundestag
His Excellency Mr. Wolfgang Thierse

Platz der Republik 1
11011 Berlin
Tel: 030 / 227-0
Fax: 030 / 22 77 09 45

Concerns: Upcoming visit of the President of the Iranian Parliament, Mr. Mehdi Karrubi to Germany,

Public letter of the IAIS

Dear Mr. President of the Bundestag,

We write you in the name of those freedom-loving Iranians, who long for freedom, democracy, and human rights, and who risk their personal lives for it. Soon Mr. Karrubi, President of the Parliament of the Islamic Republic of Iran will be a guest in Germany. Mr. Karrubi and the majority members of the Iranian parliament have put up a struggle for power with the conservative forces in the country. Indeed, their concern has been in the true sense of the word around "power", and not the well-being and the legitimate demands of the Iranian people. Before the election of the current Iranian parliament two years ago, the conservative guardianship interfered crucially with the selection of the candidates. Many of the candidates were disqualified outright due to their allegedly lacking competence, and their lack of loyalty to the highest religious leader, Ayatollah Khamenei.

Although the president of the Islamic republic possesses the constitutional rights to prevent this interference of the guardianship, Mr. Khatami has not taken serious steps to use these rights.
It is not the first time that the so-called "reformist" faction fail to introduce important reforms, when in fact they do possesses these constitutional rights - both in the parliament and in the Ministries, despite the extensive powers of the highest religious leader.

We ask ourselves why these self-declared "reformists" did not keep any of their promises, for which they were elected? And why do they not make use of their constitutional rights in order to implement fundamental reforms? At present, there exists a strong peaceful democratic movement, with ever-increasing strength, which sees a theocracy and also an "Islamic democracy " in Iran, as an obstacle to the introduction of a true democratic and secular state. The reformers are not therefore interested in the implementation of serious and fundamental reforms, because such reforms would lead to increased strength of the secular movement, and therefore the entire existence of the Islamic republic would be seriously threatened in the country. After introduction of fundamental reforms the basis of existence would be extracted from them.

The reformists' lack of interests in real reform, thus leads to the disadvantage of the Iranian people, who by a great majority reject a theocracy, as evident by their almost monthly repeating waves of protest.

Also, the reformers are themselves involved in the suppression of opposition members, students, writers, lawyers, artists, and journalists. After the arrest of such individuals, they are denied contact with their families; cases in point being journalists such as Siamak Pourzand, opposition members such as Heshmatollah Tabarzadi, students such as Reza Mehrgan, Orod Fadaii, Nima Zakeri, Farzad Hamidi and Kianoush Sanjari. These individuals were put under pressure by torture to sign false confessions, in order to expose them in the Islamic regime's propaganda apparatus.

Mr. Thierse, since your last visit to Tehran last year, the waves of repression against the opposition in Iran have increased to an intolerable extent. Mohammad Ebrahimi, an Iranian student activist of the university in Khoram Abad, was killed in December under torture in one of the regime's prisons. Another student activist, Akram Hassan Zadeh, was found dead last week on Tehran's university campus.
Allegedly she had committed suicide, but in reality, she had fought actively for democracy, liberty and human rights.

This is the calamity that has befallen the Iranian people in one of the worst dictatorships in the world today. Some active students, such as the brothers Manucher and Akbar Mohammadi, as well as Ahmad Batebi, have repeatedly resorted to hunger strikes, due to their desperate situation in Tehran's Evin prison. That is the only way for them to get more attention paid to their catastrophic physical conditions, and possibly be transferred into the infirmary of the prison.

Please also consider that recently, on average on a daily basis, a student in Iran is arrested, which automatically means abuse and torture in prison. The list of the crimes of the Islamic regime is long. Murder, terror, and torture are the response of the "Islamic democracy" to the legitimate demands of the Iranian people.

Mr. Thierse, we appeal to you to not only "speak" about human rights with Mr. Karrubi, but instead to admonish the regime seriously, and to sharply condemn the miserable human right situation in Iran. We also appeal to you to demand the immediate release of all political prisoners in Iran.

This is certainly not an illegitimate interference into the internal affairs of the Islamic republic. It would be however, a small moral support for those liberty-loving people of Iran, who long for liberty, democracy, and human rights, and risk their lives for it. Only then will you make a true contribution to the "dialog of civilizations", and to the dialog between the Iranian and the German people, and not to the dialog between a terror regime and the German government.

Faithfully yours,

Copies to: all members of the German Bundestag of the 14. Electoral period
German media