Iran abruptly cancels video meeting between Iranian and German parliamentarians
A video conference between Iranian and German parliamentarians was abruptly canceled by Iran. German MP Bijan Jirsaei was scheduled to speak about dual-citizen prisoner Nahid Taghavi.
A video conference between members of the German parliament and the Iranian parliament was canceled by Iran shortly before it was scheduled to take place. No reason has been given by Iran for the cancellation.
Bijan Jirsaei, an Iranian-born member of the German parliament from the Free Democratic Party (FDP), while announcing the news to the weekly magazine Spiegel, said that he guessed that Iran's cancellation of the meeting was due to the imposition of new European Union sanctions against human rights violators in Iran.
On Monday, the European Union imposed sanctions on eight commanders of the Revolutionary Guards, Basij, and police, along with three prisons in the Islamic Republic (Evin Prison, Fashafoyeh, and Rajai Shahr Prison in Karaj). These individuals are accused of violating human rights and suppressing the November 2019 protests.
So far, a total of 87 Iranian political, judicial, executive, and security officials have been placed on the European Union sanctions list.
Jirsaei told Der Spiegel that with the cancellation of the long-planned meeting between Iranian and German representatives, there will likely not be another meeting between these representatives until after September and the German parliamentary elections.
The Iran-Germany Parliamentary Group is part of a global network of parliamentarians from around the world, whose programs are organized by the German parliament. These meetings are sometimes accompanied by critical issues. Human rights issues have always been a topic of discussion for German representatives in their meetings with their Iranian counterparts.
Last year, due to the coronavirus outbreak, there was no meeting between representatives of Iran and Germany.
Interview about Nahid Taghavi
Bijan Jirsaei, the foreign policy spokesman for the Free Democratic Party faction in the German Bundestag, was scheduled to discuss Nahid Taghavi, an Iranian-German citizen who has been in Evin Prison since last fall, in a video meeting with Iranian parliament members.
Late last month, Jirsaraei, along with his party colleague from Cologne, where Ms. Taghavi lives, wrote a letter about her to the Iranian ambassador to Germany.
In this letter, the two German MPs warned about the situation of Nahid Taghavi, who has been imprisoned for about five months, noting that her physical condition is deteriorating and that she has no contact with her lawyer. In a letter to the Iranian ambassador, they considered these conditions “unacceptable.”
Source: DW
