Germany to Summon Iranian Envoy Over Tehran School Closure
(Bloomberg) -- Germany’s foreign ministry said it will summon Iran’s ambassador in Berlin after security services shut down the DSIT German language institute in Tehran.
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The Iranian judiciary’s Mizan news agency reported earlier Tuesday that authorities had closed two branches of “illegal centers linked to Germany’s government,” without saying what the sites were. The justification for the action was “multiple violations of the country’s law and extensive financial misconduct,” the agency said.
The move appeared to be a retaliation for Germany’s decision in July to close dozens of buildings linked to a Shia Islamic organization in Hamburg. Germany’s ambassador to Iran, Hans-Udo Muzel, was summoned to the foreign ministry in Tehran at the time, the Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
“We condemn the actions of the Iranian security authorities against the German Language Institute,” a spokesman for the foreign ministry in Berlin said Tuesday by email.
“The institute is a popular and recognized meeting place where people put a lot of personal effort into learning a language under difficult conditions,” the spokesman added. “We call on the new Iranian government to allow teaching to resume immediately.”
According to the ministry, the DSIT was founded in 1995 by the German embassy in Tehran. It’s financed by its own income from fees for language courses and exams and employs 85 local teachers.
--With assistance from Arsalan Shahla and Patrick Sykes.
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