Well, torture is one thing at which the Germans are certifiably expert.
It is not, unfortunately, in English, but the courageous Iranian dissident Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi sends this link from IranPressNews, to the effect that “German TV reports the sale of torture devices to the Mullah regime.” You can watch the German news video there — I caught the word “electroshock.”
This redounds to the everlasting shame of the German corporation or corporations involved, and the German government.
If any German-speaking Jihad Watch readers can provide a translation of the video, I would be most grateful, and will post it forthwith.
UPDATE: Here is a translation, courtesy Jihad Watch reader Kilian. Heartfelt thanks to Kilian for sending this in:
The protests in Iran are abating, but our attentiveness is not abating. The pressure on opposition leader Mousavi is increasing. Today, radical delegates called for putting Mousavi on trial. Critics are still being put down in the prisons. Whenever the clubs rain down on the demonstrators, whenever electro-shockers are used for forced confessions, when modern wire-tapping technology turns Iran into a
perfect police state, then many of these products are made in Germany. This is and will remain a topic for “Monitor” [The name of the TV magazine]. Norbert Hahn and Jan Schmidt report about German High-Tech for the Mullahs’ regime.The annual Iranian police fair [IPAS 2009] starts in 2 weeks. On sale is everything the security forces of a dictatorship more or less need. The organizer of the fair is the purchasing department of the Iranian military forces, the handymen of a dictatorship, which have clubbed the last bits of resistance on the streets into silence. Thousands have been detained and 20 are dead, according to official estimates. Today, on July 2, it is supposed to be quiet in Tehran. The violence of the regime has won so far.
The woman’s rights advocate Resvan Mohadam has personally witnessed this violence. In the course of 30 years she has been detained time and time again, in particular under Ahmadinejad. Her husband was tortured to death. Whenever she talks about this, she appears very composed. The last time she was detained occurred in 2007 during a demonstration on “woman’s day.”
“They beat and kicked everyone. They beat the women on the head and kicked against their breasts. I intervened because they started beating a young girl. Then they started beating me.”
The current demonstrators are incarcerated here, in the infamous Evin prison. The advocate knows how prisoners are treated here. She could hear herself how prisoners were tortured with electro-shockers in neighboring prison cells. Amnesty International has re-enacted the brutality.
“It must be so horrific that they make people admit things they have never done.”
Electro-shockers like these are made in Germany. Until now, about 100 electro-shockers have been discovered, which were supposed to have been delivered to Iran. They were discovered essentially by chance. The investigations by the police force and customs have shown that the illegal goods are dismantled into several components. There are many routes into Iran. Some take the direct route, some take a detour across the CIS states, and then some goods take the route across the free trade zone of Dubai. This form of deception is performed systematically.
Since September, Resvan Mohadam has been living in Germany. But whenever she talks with friends in Iran over the telephone, she is scared that her friends may simply disappear thereafter.
“If you’re an advocate for civil rights in Iran, then it is like living in a glass house. One is permanently controlled, everything, friends coming and going, the telephone is tapped.”
Technology from Germany is used for eavesdropping. Siemens developed it; the German/Finnish subsidiary Nokia-Siemens-networks has sold it to Iran. Mobile phones can be tapped using the delivered “monitoring centre.” The Austrian Erich Möchelt is an expert on this technology, he knows in particular the technology delivered to Iran. Using the data from this monitoring centre, the location of persons can be determined, their communication profile can be determined, i.e. who they talk to. Groups of people can be identified and monitored, even if they do not want to appear as a group. A special form of computer-aided search can be performed using this monitoring centre.
The press officer of Nokia-Siemens-Networks only responded to our request in writing and downplays the usefulness of the system.
“Among our supplied goods in 2008 was a recording device, which is used for recording a very small number of calls in order to fight against crime.”
Only listening to a small number of criminals?
This sounded quite different during the trade fair for security technology in Dubai, named ISS.
“The users of the monitoring system can display and analyse very fast a large number of caller data by analyzing the call connections.”
The possibilities for communicating are increasing dramatically.
However, the dictators want to remain in control. The market is booming. This relates to security technology in the IT domain and also increasingly to surveillance technology, cameras, electronics, software and data centres for monitoring movement and communication.
The Iranian police fair IPAS: The connection with the dictatorship hasn’t stopped many German Companies from displaying their products, among them “Rohde und Schwarz.” In the West, this company is known as the foremost in radio technology, in particular for the military and secret services. “Monitor” wanted to know whether the company plans to attend the fair organized by the Iranian security forces. We received no clear answer. This is their statement:
“Rohde und Schwarz has been maintaining business connections with customers in Iran for years. All of the exported goods are scrutinized according to the presently valid regulations.”
If German security technology continues to be exported to Iran, this would not be acceptable to the human rights commissioner of the federal government.
“Following the protests of the past weeks, it appears distasteful to keep on acting as if nothing had happened and as if the police force and other military armed forces had not substantially quashed the protests. Therefore, I feel it is distasteful to go there in order to talk about good business for oppression.”
Resvan Mohadam: In secrecy she has been convicted for yet another prison term and additionally to flogging ten times. Hence, she won’t go back to Iran in the foreseeable future — unlike many German sales representatives.