Press
Olaf Scholz’s expression of condolences to Iran is interpreted by many as support for a brutal regime. The outrage is great.
Berlin – After the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hussein Amirabdollahian in a helicopter crash on Sunday (May 19), Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) expressed his condolences to the government in Tehran and the families of the dead.
He received severe criticism for his letter of condolence. Picture-Journalist Iman Sefati is appalled by the expressions of solidarity. Sefati’s father was executed by Tehran’s mullahs’ regime in 1988.
Condolences for mass murderers? Shocked reactions to condolences from Germany
Raisi is called the “Butcher of Tehran” in many circles. Tehran is the capital of Iran, and Raisi was a public prosecutor there in the 1980s. The criticism is that condolences for a mass murderer are unnecessary. Not only in social media, but also in political circles, there is discussion about whether it was appropriate for Germany to express its condolences to Iran.
The father of Bild journalist Iman Sefati had protested against the Mullah regime in the 1980s, as he stated in a Interview with World TV told. He was then arrested and sentenced to death, “like thousands of other Iranians.” Sefati was shocked and horrified by the condolences EU and U.N.. “It seems that the world is ignoring the suffering of people in Iran,” he continues.
He was particularly disappointed by Scholz and his statements about Iran, especially since two German citizens are still in prison in Iran. Sefati’s mother Tahareh is also stunned, as she told her Picture says. “How can it be that he condoles with this regime for the murder of my husband?”
“The people are against Raisi”: joy over his death
Sefati is not surprised that national mourning has been ordered in Iran in view of Raisi’s fatal accident in the helicopter crash. The current images of thousands of people mourning are images that the Iranian government is very happy to put online, like this Picturejournalist suspects. But: “The people are against Raisi. People were happy that he died. That is a fact,” he says in an interview with World TV. “Finally, justice has prevailed.”
Iman Sefati also posted a post on Instagram in which he sharply criticised the EU’s expressions of condolence for a “totalitarian and fundamentalist religious mass murderer”.
#Scholzs #condolences #Raisi #horror #among #victims #family