The German government will take action in response to Iran sentencing a German-Iranian citizen to death over so-called “corruption on earth” charges, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Tuesday.
On Tuesday, a Revolutionary Court in Tehran sentenced 67-year-old Jamshid Sharmahd to death, finding him guilty of “corruption on earth,” an offence the Tehran regime often attributes to political dissidents.
“Not only is the death penalty cruel, inhumane and degrading, but Jamshid Sharmahd has never had even a semblance of a fair trial,” Baerbock said in a statement published later the same day, adding the step would “provoke a clear reaction” from Berlin.
The German government repeatedly advocated for Sharmahd, though Baerbock said her government’s “intensive efforts were ignored by Iran, consular access and also access to trial dates were repeatedly denied to us.”
The Green minister also called Tehran to “correct the sentence accordingly and refrain from imposing the death penalty.”
Baerbock did not give any details on what exactly Germany’s reaction would entail and did not speak of branding Iran’s revolutionary guard as a terrorist organisation – a step that opposition representatives have repeatedly called for.
Reacting to Baerbock’s statement on Tuesday, Norbert Röttgen, the former Chair of the Bundestag Foreign Affairs Committee of the Conservative CDU, accused the foreign ministry of “blocking” such action via Twitter.
According to his family, Sharmahd was arrested in mid-2020 in Dubai by the Iranian Secret Service forces. His daughter, Gazelle Sharmahd, has repeatedly called on Chancellor Olaf Scholz and other government members to try and stop or at least delay his execution.
(Julia Dahm | EURACTIV.de)
Source: euractiv.com
