Germany Divided on How to Approach Iran

A demonstration in solidarity with Iranian anti-government protesters in Madrid. (Reuters)
A demonstration in solidarity with Iranian anti-government protesters in Madrid. (Reuters)
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Germany Divided on How to Approach Iran

A demonstration in solidarity with Iranian anti-government protesters in Madrid. (Reuters)
A demonstration in solidarity with Iranian anti-government protesters in Madrid. (Reuters)

Internal conflict is growing in Germany over how to deal with Iran, where human rights violations are rampant against the backdrop of demonstrations that the country has been raging for weeks.

Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s Foreign Minister, had vowed upon taking office last year that she would promote a foreign policy based on human rights and women. Today, Baerbock finds herself unable to provide Iranians with tangible support.

“Hard to bear what is happening at Sharif University in Iran,” Baerbock tweeted on October 3.

“The courage of the Iranians is incredible. And the regime’s brute force is an expression of sheer fear of the power of education and freedom,” she added.

“It is also difficult to bear that our foreign policy options are limited. But we can amplify their voice, create publicity, bring charges and sanction. And that we are doing,” she also tweeted.

Despite her call for slapping more sanctions on Iran, Baerbock refuses to tie the nuclear talks with the cleric-led country to its human rights infractions.

Omid Nouripour, of Baerbock's Green Party called for European sanctions against Iranian officials, without mentioning the negotiations on the nuclear program.

Unlike Baerbock and Nouripour, politicians in the other two parties participating in the government coalition have called for halting nuclear talks with Iran over its brutal crackdown on protesters. This reflected internal differences between Germany’s ruling parties on how to handle Iran.

Leader of the ruling Social Democratic Party, of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Saskia Esken called for an end to talks on the nuclear deal with Tehran because of the Iranian authorities’ crackdown on the protests.

Now the moment has come “to say clearly: up to here and no further,” said Esken on the ZDF program “Berlin direct” on Sunday. “The talks must end in the way that the women and men on the streets are being dealt with at the moment.”

Demonstrations have been sparked by the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who was detained for "inappropriate attire".

Iran's rulers have struggled to contain protests that erupted in September and swept the country. The brutal crackdown had brought international condemnation and sanctions against Iranian officials.



ICC Opens Inquiry into Hungary for Failing to Arrest Netanyahu

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)
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ICC Opens Inquiry into Hungary for Failing to Arrest Netanyahu

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)

Judges at the International Criminal Court want Hungary to explain why it failed to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visited Budapest earlier this month.

In a filing released late Wednesday, The Hague-based court initiated non-compliance proceedings against Hungary after the country gave Netanyahu a red carpet welcome despite an ICC arrest warrant for crimes against humanity in connection with the war in Gaza.

During the visit, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced his country would quit the court, claiming on state radio that the ICC was “no longer an impartial court, not a court of law, but a political court.”

The Hungarian leader, regarded by critics as an autocrat and the EU’s most intransigent spoiler in the bloc’s decision-making, defended his decision to not arrest Netanyahu.

“We signed an international treaty, but we never took all the steps that would otherwise have made it enforceable in Hungary,” Orbán said at the time, referring to the fact that Hungary’s parliament never promulgated the court’s statute into Hungarian law.

Judges at the ICC have previously dismissed similar arguments.

The ICC and other international organizations have criticized Hungary’s defiance of the warrant against Netanyahu. Days before his arrival, the president of the court’s oversight body wrote to the government in Hungary reminding it of its “specific obligation to comply with requests from the court for arrest and surrender.”

A spokesperson for the ICC declined to comment on the non-compliance proceedings.

Hungary’s decision to leave the ICC, a process that will take at least a year to complete, will make it the sole non-signatory within the 27-member European Union. With 125 current signatory countries, only the Philippines and Burundi have ever withdrawn from the court as Hungary intends.

Hungary has until May 23 to submit evidence in its defense.