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Demonstration against deportations in Schwerin (picture from 2007)
Photo: Jens Büttner/ picture-alliance/ dpa
The Federal Government's human rights commissioner has spoken out in favor of a renewed ban on deportations for refugees from Iran. “People who have fled this regime should not have to fear being repatriated,” said Luise Amtberg (Greens) to the Germany editorial network. “You must be able to feel permanently safe here.”
Amtberg continued that she could not understand why the Conference of Interior Ministers did not extend the deportation stop. This expired at the end of last year. Since then, Iranians have once again had to register their need for protection with the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees and have it examined in an asylum procedure.
Amtberg called for an extension of the so-called UN fact-finding mission, which was supposed to identify human rights violations in Iran. »Even if the protests are taking place more covertly, that doesn't mean that the regime is taking any less repressive action against them. Iranians continue to fight for their democratic freedoms,” she said.
A report published at the beginning of March by the commission of experts set up by the UN Human Rights Council stated that the violent suppression of peaceful protests and the institutional discrimination against women in Iran sometimes constituted crimes against humanity.
There was a wave of protests in Iran in autumn 2022 after 22-year-old Jina Mahsa Amini died in police custody. The notorious morality police had arrested her for allegedly violating the Islamic dress code.
The protests against the repressive government course plunged the political leadership into one of the worst crises in decades. The security forces sometimes used massive violence against the demonstrators; according to human rights activists, several hundred were killed. Thousands of protesters were arrested.
dab/dpa