The interest in the protests in Iran is great.
Many sympathize with those who have been taking to the streets there for six weeks, despite the great danger, to demonstrate for freedom and women's rights.
This becomes clear once again in the Anne Frank educational center: Every seat in the hall is occupied this evening, even on the steps and in the gallery, the guests take part in a discussion organized at short notice under the motto "Iran & We - Solidarity with the protests in Iran". Place.
Only speakers with biographical roots in Iran will sit on the podium: the Greens Federal Chairman Omid Nouripour, the political scientist and Middle East expert Ali Fathollah-Nejad, Nava Zarabian from the educational institution and - as moderator - the Deutschlandfunk journalist Susan Zare.
What distinguishes the current protests from previous ones?
How can the West support the movement?
Why did German politicians react so hesitantly to the uprisings at first?
The lively and often emotional debate revolves around such questions.
Middle and lower classes in Iran together for the first time
No one on the podium expressed any doubt that the protests that broke out after the violent death of the Iranian Kurd Jina Mahsa Amini, which were initiated by women but are now supported by large sections of the population, are of a special quality.
Nava Zarabian reports on an unprecedented wave of solidarity on social media and on the courage of the people who publish videos of the protests despite internet censorship in Iran.
Fathollah-Nejad says that now, for the first time, the middle and lower classes are taking to the streets together against the mullahs' regime.
He therefore says: What is happening is an "epochal moment", a "revolutionary episode".
The leader of the Greens, Nouripour, who moved to exile in Frankfurt with his parents from Iran in 1988, also believes that the revolt can no longer be stopped: "I know that these people will not go home, they will don't let them flee," he says.
"People are no longer afraid, these women will not lose."
The question of German solidarity with the protests was directed primarily at Nouripour that evening.
The fact that the country, which has championed a “feminist foreign policy” since the change of government, has for a long time only timidly criticized the Iranian regime, has recently been criticized frequently.
The political scientist Fathollah-Nejad also shares this assessment.
The previous sanctions are "not worth mentioning," he says.
"In Germany, those who understand Iran have dominated foreign policy for a long time."
European sanctions
Nouripour not only understands this frustration, he also shares it.
He's just as annoyed by "the slowness" with which politicians are reacting to the crisis in Iran.
Nonetheless, he defends her.
Joint sanctions by the European community of states, the West, are important.
Only a united reaction would actually put the regime under pressure.
Unfortunately, one also has to accept that it often takes a long time before action is taken against institutions in Germany that are loyal to the regime.
"We are a constitutional state," says the Green Party leader.