Rally in Berlin on Iran: “Woman, life, freedom”
“Feminist foreign policy” is demanded at a rally against the mullah regime. Seyran Ates misses the solidarity of local Muslims with Iranian women.
BERLIN taz | Almost 200 people protested in front of the Federal Chancellery on Wednesday afternoon against the federal government’s “appeasement” policy towards the Iranian mullah regime and showed their solidarity with the protests in Iran after the death of Zhina Amini. The young woman has been known to the world as Mahsa Amini since last week – she was not officially allowed to be called Zhina because that is a Kurdish name. Many posters by the Berlin demonstrators show the picture of the 22-year-old, who was arrested in Tehran by the “moral police” for allegedly having a veil that was too “loose” and beaten to death.
While tens of thousands are taking to the streets in many places in Iran and the regime sees itself under so much pressure that it has now partially blocked social media, the excitement in the German capital remains manageable. In her speech, the women’s rights activist and liberal Muslim Seyran Ates called for all those who did not attend the rally. Where are the Muslim women who wear headscarves and the politicians who support them and who fight for justice in this country: “Why don’t they work to ensure that others don’t have to wear it?”
She also misses the thousands of people who took to the streets in the United States after the police murder of George Floyd. Freedom is only possible if all people accept their differences, said Ates – and held a veil in one hand and the rainbow flag in the other: “We have to work together against these murderers,” she shouted to applause.
The exact reason for the rally was the appearance of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi before the UN General Assembly on Wednesday in New York. The fact that the “Holocaust denier and mass murderer” received a US visa and was allowed to give his speech was “a low point in the history of the United Nations,” said Andreas Benl, co-founder of Stop the Bomb, in his speech. The German-Austrian initiative was one of the organizers, as were the groups Alliance Against Islamic Regime of Iran Apologists (AAIRIA), Women for Freedom and the International Women in Power (IWP) and the Notoexecution Campaign.
“Where is feminist foreign policy?”
Benl and other speakers also criticized the federal government’s reticence towards the regime. The fact that the German government is continuing to negotiate with Iran, not least to save the so-called “nuclear deal”, is a “slap in the face not only to the people of Iran, but to everyone who is fighting for human rights, including in the Ukraine war,” he said Benl to the taz.
Activist Daniela Sepehri pointed out that Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) has been talking about “feminist foreign policy” since she took office, as did Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD): “Where is she in relation to Iran?”, especially she rhetorically. Instead, you sit at a table with Raisi in New York. Scholz did not even mention Mahsa’s death in his 15-minute speech.
Ates also appealed to Baerbock that now was the opportunity to “do feminist foreign policy”: In Iran, “believing Muslims, agnostics and liberals took to the streets together” against the “terrorists in the government” who trample human rights. “It is not enough to simply demand compliance,” said Ates.
Red thread remained in all speeches #Zhina Amini, who seems to have become the new symbol of the Iranian resistance – even if, as some speakers pointed out, women in Iran have been fighting their oppression for 43 years. As an expression of solidarity, the crowd chanted the current slogan of the protests in Iran: “zan, zendegi, azadi” – woman, life, freedom. Quite a few participants, who by all appearances were Iranian exiles, got teary-eyed, and some clenched their fists in the sky.
However, the feeling of solidarity does not seem to go so far that it can overcome old political rifts – which may be one of the reasons for the relatively low participation. The association of Iranian refugees, which is not unimportant in Berlin, stayed away from the rally because of political differences with the organizers. The club had organized a vigil for Masha Amini at Kottbusser Tor on Monday evening according to media reports about 200 people also came.