UANI Calls on Terex to End Its Business in Iran in New Cranes Campaign
FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 16, 2011
Contact: Nathan Carleton, [email protected]
Phone: (212) 554-3296
UANI Calls on Terex to End Its Business in Iran in New
Cranes Campaign
New York, NY
- United Against Nuclear
Iran (UANI) on Tuesday
called on Terex to end
its business dealings in Iran and
keep the Iranian regime from using Terex cranes for public
executions.
The Terex Corporation, an American construction equipment manufacturer
based in
Westport, Connecticut, does business with Iran through foreign
subsidiaries. Terex is also a major contractor with the U.S.
Department
of Defense, benefiting from close to $300 million in defense-related
contracts
over the past ten years.
As part of its newly launched "Cranes Campaign,"
UANI is highlighting the
Iranian regime's abhorrent execution method of public hanging from
construction
cranes, and the disturbing reality that these cranes are coming from
Western
and Asian companies. In 2009, the SEC's Office of Global
Security Risk
initiated correspondence over concerns regarding Terex's sales to Iran,
Syria,
and Sudan.
In a letter to Terex Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Ronald M.
DeFeo, UANI
President, Ambassador Mark D. Wallace wrote:
As part of its
newly launched "Cranes
Campaign," UANI is urging all crane manufacturers, including Terex, to
end
their business operations in Iran until the current regime in Tehran
ends this
grisly practice and stops threatening the world through the pursuit of
an
illegal nuclear weapons program.
Sadly, this
issue has taken on greater salience in the
last several months. Iran has set a blistering pace of executions
in the first months of 2011, with
the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran proclaiming that
the regime
is on an "execution binge." According to Freedom House, Iran
has executed at least 132 people since the New Year, setting the regime
on pace
to far exceed the 179 reportedly executed in 2010. The
disturbing reality
is that the Iranian regime's preferred method of execution is hanging
from a
construction crane, gruesomely leaving the bodies on public display.
UANI is calling upon all crane suppliers, including Terex, to end their
business
dealings in Iran.
***
Even
putting aside the clear misuse of these
cranes for public executions, the possibility of Terex's name being
even
remotely associated with the thugocratic regime in Tehran should be
reason
enough to end Terex's business in Iran.
UANI Advisory Board
Member Irwin
Cotler, a Member of Canada's Parliament and a prominent human rights
lawyer,
also stated, "Iranian assaults on human rights executions have
escalated
dramatically in 2011. Indeed, the rate of executions has been
unprecedented,
even by wanton Iranian standards. We are witnessing in
Ahmadinejad's Iran
the toxic convergence of four distinct yet interrelated threats: the
nuclear
threat; the genocidal incitement threat; the threat of state-sponsored
terrorism; and the systematic and widespread violations of the rights
of the
Iranian people."
Responsible corporations, notably construction companies Caterpillar
and
Komatsu, have already pulled out of Iran. In addition to
Terex, as part
of the Cranes Campaign UANI is also calling on Manitowoc, a
U.S. cranes company, and foreign
equipment manufacturers such as Tadano
(Japan), UNIC (Japan), Liebherr
(Germany), Cargotec
(Finland), Konecranes
(Finland), XCMG (China), Kobelco
(Japan), Zoomlion
(China) and Gottwald
(Germany) to account for their business
in Iran and the likelihood (and in some cases direct photographic
evidence) that their cranes
are being used for public executions.
Andrew Apostolou of Freedom House
added, "Companies need to be
aware that doing business with Iran can mean assisting in gross human
rights
violations. The use of the death penalty in Iran is highly
abusive and
unfair. Navi Pillay, the United Nations High Commissioner for
Human
Rights, has called for a moratorium on executions-responsible companies
can do
their part by ending their dealings with the Iranian regime."
Click here to send a
message to Terex.
Click here to read
the letter to Terex.
Click here to learn
more about the UANI Cranes
Campaign.
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