Media - European Foundation for Democracy

Broadcast 11 October 2012

Sanctions on Iran: the real impact?

EFD's Wahied Wahdat-Hagh discusses the impact of international sanctions on Iran with Russian radio, the Voice of Russia....

Article 10 October 2012

Ali Khamenei: Sanctions have nothing to do with the nuclear programme

Ali Khamenei downplays the impact of sanctions on Iran, arguing that they have been in force in various forms since 1979. He claimed that even if Iran halted its nuclear programme the sanctions would remain....

Broadcast 09 October 2012

Bakary Sambe, EFD Senior Fellow, speaks to the BBC on the crisis in Mali

Le 19 octobre, la Cédéao, l'Union africaine et l'ONU se donnent rendez-vous à Bamako pour une réunion consacrée à la crise que vit le Mali depuis le début de l'année. Un rencontre qui intervient après celle organisée la semaine dernière à Bamako par la Coalition pour le Mali pour dénoncer l'occupation et la partition de fait du pays. Bakary Sambe est spécialiste du militantisme islamique et des réseaux transnationaux, pour lui, l...

Broadcast 07 October 2012

EFD Programme Director Ahmad Mansour appears on West Deutscher Rundfunk

EFD Policy Advisor Ahmad Mansour appears live on the talkshow West Art on West Deutscher Rundfunk to discuss anti-Semitism within Muslim communities in Germany....

Article 03 October 2012

Iran: “We only need an excuse and 24 hours to destroy Israel”

The leader of the Quds Force terrorist group says, “We only need an excuse and 24 hours to destroy Israel”....

Article 26 September 2012

Iran: Oil revenues being diverted into military & nuclear programmes

Iran has huge, fundamental economic problems. Despite this, the Islamist rulers of Iran are continuing to divert oil revenues into military hardware and the nuclear programme....

Article 20 September 2012

US sanctions and the Iranian export of terrorism

The U.S. Department of the Treasury imposed sanctions on 117 Iranian aircraft operated by Iran Air, Mahan Air and Yas Air. With the assistance of the terrorist organisation, Hezbollah, Iran is aiding the Assad regime in continuing to commit crimes against its own people....

Article 14 September 2012

Iranian Revolutionary Guard takes control of churches

Iranian Revolutionary Guards have taken control of two churches in Isfahan and are using intimidation and threats of arrest against those who attempt to enter....

Article 10 September 2012

Iran’s crazed gay bashers

Conspiracy is rife in certain sections of Iranian society when it comes to issues such as Israel, the US, and homosexuality. Sadly, mainstream media outlets also play their part....

Article 06 September 2012

Iran’s failed attempt at unifying the Non-Aligned countries

At a recent meeting in Tehran, the Iranian regime did not succeed in uniting the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) against Israel. Despite this, UN Secretary General Ban Kim Moon was the only representative who protested the State-sponsored anti-Semitism propagated by the Iranian leader Ali Khamenei....

Article 29 August 2012

A barometer for freedom and equality in Egypt

The persecution of minorities in an Islamic society is truly a barometer of the lack of freedom and equality that prevails there....

Article 24 August 2012

Training ground of the dictatorship

Spokesperson of the Iranian Dervish in Europe, Dr. Mostafa Azmayesh, explains why cooperation with Islamist institutions does not lead to an open society in Iran but strengthens the dictatorship instead....

Article 20 August 2012

Ahmadinejad wants “no trace of America or Zionists” in Middle East

Ahmadinejad is no cleric, but he still took the opportunity to give a hate speech at a Friday prayer meeting held on Quds Day....

Article 17 August 2012

EU intervention in Syria

If Europe wishes to effect true democracy in the wake of the Assad regime, it must stop playing into the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood and start aiding the rebels on the ground militarily. It has been conventional wisdom that the Syrian opposition is deeply divided, making aid and support from the international community very difficult to send. The lack of “one address” with which to coordinate also makes any thoughts of a more rob...

Article 16 August 2012

Iranian leaders threaten Israel with destruction

Ahead of Quds Day Iranian politicians have repeated their calls for the destruction of Israel....

Article 15 August 2012

Dialogue with anti-Semites: Iranian Islamists at the Frankfurt Book Fair (Part IV)

Despite international sanctions, the Iranian regime continues to find new ways in manifesting its presence in Germany. This year, the regime will have a prominent presence at the Frankfurt Book Fair....

Article 08 August 2012

The Anti-Semitic Iranian partner of a German university (Part III)

The University of Religions and Denominations in Qom advocates the anti-American and anti-Semitic state doctrine of the totalitarian dictatorship....

Article 06 August 2012

Academic collaboration with a college of Islamist propaganda (Part II)

As outlined in the first part of this series, there is a close relationship between the Institute of Religious Studies at the University of Potsdam and the University of Religions and Denominations in the Iranian city of Qom. The problem is that the Iranian institution is an adherent to the totalitarian state ideology of the “Islamic Republic of Iran”....

Article 02 August 2012

Academic collaboration with a college of Islamist propaganda (Part I)

There is a close relationship between the Institute of Religious Studies at the University of Potsdam and the University of Religions and Denominations in the Iranian City of Qom. The problem is that the Islamist school in Qom is an academy with the aim of spreading the Islamist ideology of the Khomeinist dictatorship....

Article 23 July 2012

The Iranian regime’s fear of prayer

There has been a recent escalation of systematic persecution of the Baha'is in Iran. Time and again members of the religious minority are arrested under false pretences and imprisoned....

Article 18 July 2012

Iran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz

The Iranian regime sees the Strait of Hormuz as its back yard over which it exerts control. It would not hesitate to close it off in the event of a crisis....

Article 12 July 2012

European sanctions and Iran

Representatives of the Iranian regime declare European sanctions to be ineffective as oil revenues decline and discontent grows among the Iranian people....

Article 06 July 2012

Iran’s desire to ratchet up the Syrian-Israeli conflict

The main aim of the Islamist regime in Iran is to reduce the influence of the West in the Islamic world. One way the Iranian regime is doing this is by stoking and radicalising the Syrian-Israeli conflict....

Article 03 July 2012

Iran’s Bassiji Jihadists as uncontrollable as the atomic bomb

Iran responds to European Union sanctions with military manoeuvres and by threatening to embark on jihadist suicide missions....

Article 03 July 2012

Mohammed Morsi’s election: has democracy really won the day?

In the below article, EFD Senior Fellow Valentina Colombo discusses 2012 Mohammed Morsi’s election....

Article 29 June 2012

Exploitation in Iran

Ahmadinejad promised to make oil money flow to Iran’s poor. However, the opposite occurred and Iranian workers are now worse off than before....

Article 28 June 2012

Anti-Semitism in Iran and International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking

On 26th June, International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, Mohammad Reza Rahimi, Secretary of the Iranian president gave an anti-Semitic speech and claimed that Talmud encourages the global narcotics trade....

Article 28 June 2012

Iran’s Moral Police combat the “virus” of Western-oriented women

How long will the world continue to look away while Iranian women are oppressed by the systematic, gender-apartheid policies of the Islamist dictatorship?...

Article 15 June 2012

Iranian scholar warns his government of arrogance

Iranian professor, Mahoud Sariulqalam, analyses the politics of the West and certain Middle Eastern countries from the perspective of Iranian power politics. The Iranian political scientist works in a Tehran University and is regarded as a pragmatic and realistic expert of US affairs....

Article 11 June 2012

Iranian state terrorism? A shot at the apostates

The Iranian regime is actively calling for the killing of those it sees as dissidents....

Article 08 June 2012

Iran focuses on its relationship with China and Russia

Iran has recently stepped up countermeasures against the European policy of sanctions. It is making inroads to a stronger commitment toward OPEC and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in order to reduce its dependence on Europe....

Article 31 May 2012

Iranian ambassador denies his FTD interview

In an interview with Fars News, the Iranian ambassador in Berlin contradicted the contents of an interview with Financial Times Deutschland in which he reportedly argued that Iran does not need to enrich uranium to 20 per cent....

Article 29 May 2012

A plea against Salafism

EFD Policy Advisor, Ahmad Mansour's plea against Salafism published in the German daily Die Zeit....

Article 16 May 2012

Iranian death fatwas issued on Muslims and non-Muslims

Shahin Najafi has become the first target of recent fatwas by Iranian Grand Ayatollah Safi Golpayegani and Grand Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi. These fatwas, call for Muslims and non-Muslims who “insult” the Imams and the Prophet of Islam to be murdered....

Article 14 May 2012

The West must not rely on Khamenei’s shaky fatwas

The religious leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, has been quoted in various speeches saying that a nuclear bomb is un-Islamic. A number of politicians, academics and journalists have subsequently concluded that this amounts to a fatwa on the nuclear bomb and that the building of a nuclear weapon in Iran is therefore unlikely....

Mention 12 May 2012

An Islamic reformer who can’t be silenced

In the April 5 edition of The New Republic I published an essay called “The Thought Police” on Islamist campaigns to suppress independent thinking, as described in a Hudson Institute human rights report by Paul Marshall and Nina Shea. My essay listed a great number of reformers from Muslim backgrounds who have come under threat or have actually been attacked, with the names drawn largely from Marshall and Shea’s study. I mentioned in pass...