A World Cup match sparks an anti-Iran, pro-Israel rally
On Sunday, just before Mexico met Iran on the playing field in Nuremberg in one of the first matches of the 2006 World Cup tournament, some 1200 Jews and their supporters took to the streets of that southeastern German city where Hitler had staged his infamous, Nazi-era rallies.
The target of the protesters’ ire: the visit to Germany, to attend the Mexico-Iran match, of Iranian Vice-president Mohammad Aliabadi, whose boss, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has upset Jews and supporters of Israel around the world with his questioning of the Nazis’ slaughter of Jews during World War II and his call for the Jewish state to be “wiped off the map.” (Ynetnews.com , Israel) In Germany, claiming that the Nazis’ atrocities did not take place is a crime punishable by a sentence of as many as five years in prison. (Reuters )
Sunday’s demonstration, its organizers said, “was aimed at the Iranian government, not [at] its people or its football team .” Meanwhile, at the venue where the Mexico-Iran match was scheduled to be played, a “mood of celebration among Mexican fans in giant sombreros milling around the stadium was in stark contrast to the scenes several miles away…where the infamous Nuremberg laws clamping down on German Jews were signed in 1935.” (Mexico’s team went on to beat Iran’s with a score of three to one.) (Independent )
During the anti-Ahmadinejad demonstration, which Nuremberg mayor Ulrich Maly attended, “[h]undreds of blue-and-white Israeli flags flapped as speakers condemning the Iranian leadership were met with roars of approval from the crowd.” Michael Friedman, a well-known Jewish TV personality in Germany, was there. Friedman said: “Now [that Iranian Vice-president Aliabadi] is at this game, the World Cup has become political….He is a man who has never challenged the words of his [president, Ahmadinejad], a 21st-century Hitler….The German government should have banned this man from Germany.” (Independent ) (Senior foreign-government officials like Aliabadi usually are not prevented from crossing other countries’ borders, as they travel on diplomatic passports and are normally provided whatever entry visas they may need – or may even have such visa requirements waived.)
Friedman also called Aliabadi’s presence in Germany for the Mexico-Iran game “a disgrace for our…credibility.” (Bayerischer Rundfunk )
Both supporters and critics of Iran tried to gain media attention for their positions. In addition to the protest event in Nuremberg, “a group of Israelis had secured tickets to the sell-out [Mexico-Iran] match at the stadium adjacent to the Zeppelin amphitheater where Hitler staged Nazi rallies between 1927 and 1935. They hoped…the television cameras would catch the block of Israeli flags [they carried] and send their message to a worldwide audience.” (Independent )
Before the match, police had “dispersed a German neo-Nazi group that had dressed up in Iranian football shirts and handed out anti-Jewish leaflets….” (DPA/Expatica.com ) On its Web site , the Berlin-based, far-right-wing National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) enthusiastically welcomed Iran’s senior government figures to Germany. In preparation for the World Cup events this month, the NPD had prepared “racist brochures and leaflets” that called “black-skinned soccer players in German uniforms ‘foreign infiltrators.'” German police had raided the organization’s offices and seized the material before last weekend’s match. (Ynetnews.com )
The German state of Bavaria’s interior minister, Günther Beckstein, who spoke at the anti-Ahmadinejad demonstration, said: “We are not against the Iranian people, we are only against their president….If he didn’t hold a diplomatic passport, he would have been arrested upon his arrival in Germany. The Iranian people are our friends, but people like Ahmadinejad, who denied the Holocaust and calls and incites for murder, is a criminal .”
As it turned out, like good sports, Aliabadi and Maly sat next to each other at the Mexico-Iran game, even though Nuremberg’s mayor had condemned the Iranian official at the Jewish-led demonstration earlier in the day. (Independent )
Posted By: Edward M. Gomez (Email ) | June 13 2006 at 08:38 AM
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