The modern headquarters of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Berlin became this Monday the scene of a demonstration by citizens demanding a greater mobilization from the Government in favor of Jamshid Sharmahd, a 68-year-old German-Iranian who was sentenced to death in Iran. in February, a sentence that was confirmed by the Supreme Court of that country.
Sharmahd was arrested in July 2020 and subsequently tried for participating, according to Iranian justice, in an attack on a mosque in Chiraz, in southern Iran, which caused 14 deaths and 300 injuries in April 2008. Sharmahd was arrested and kidnapped by the Iranian secret service in Dubai in the summer of 2020. Iran then spoke of a “complex operation”, without ever specifying the circumstances of his capture. Amnesty International denounced an “enforced disappearance”, followed by a “grossly unfair trial” and acts of torture.
Sharmahd’s capture and subsequent death sentence poisoned relations between Berlin and Tehran, and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called on Tehran at the time to overturn the verdict, calling it “absolutely unacceptable and arbitrary.”
It is not the only case of arrests and convictions of citizens with dual nationality from Iran and from a European country. Tehran is holding dozens of European prisoners to put pressure on the EU. Sometimes the Iranian authorities try to exchange them for other Iranian prisoners on European soil.
It is not yet clear when that sentence will be carried out in Iran. Meanwhile, a group of protesters – some 50 people, according to the police – mobilized this Monday in front of the ministry’s headquarters to demand from the German government a more effective policy to save the life of the computer programmer, who contributed to the creation of a website website for an Iranian opposition group in exile known by the name of tondar and who is considered a “terrorist” by the Iranian government.
The protest was indirectly supported by Sahrmand’s daughter, who denounced from the United States, through various media, what she considers inaction by the Government. “A German citizen was kidnapped and it’s like nothing,” she told the France Presse Gazelle Sharmahd news agency.
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A ministry spokesman rejected the daughter’s statements and assured that the Executive uses “all channels” to avoid an execution. “We continue to work intensively for Jamshid Sharmahd and against the execution of the death penalty,” the spokesperson said.
Sharmand came to Germany as a child and in the 1980s obtained German citizenship, but decided to emigrate to the United States, where he was active in the opposition group in exile. tondar (Thunder), which advocates the return of the monarchy to Iran.
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