Buenos Aires, Jan 30, (dpa/GNA) – During a visit to Argentina, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz paid his respects to the thousands of victims of the country’s military dictatorship, from 1976 to 1983 – and in doing so made a connection to the crackdown on demonstrators in Iran.
At a memorial on the Rio de la Plata in Buenos Aires on Sunday, Scholz said he had to “think of the young people who are now being killed in Iran, when they stand up for their freedom and for a better life.”
During the military dictatorship in Argentina, it is estimated that between 7,000 and 30,000 people were killed. Some of them were killed during so-called death flights, when they were dropped from planes over the Rio de la Plata.
At the memorial, Scholz also met bereaved families, who were typically not informed of what had happened to their loved ones, after the extrajudicial killings.
“The fact that dictatorship brings human suffering, oppression and death, that is what is very visible here, just as we are currently perceiving it everywhere in the world,” Scholz said.
What happened in Argentina at that time was a reminder not to take freedom for granted, he said. “It is our task to make sure that we leave such times behind us.”
The US-based organization Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) published a report on Sunday saying that at least 527 protesters have been killed in Iran since the start of anti-government protests more than four months ago.
Later on Sunday, Scholz was set to fly on to Chile, the second stop on his four-day South American trip, which also sees him visiting Brazil.
GNA