Liebherr of Germany last week told the organization leading the campaign to end crane sales that in May it informed its customers in Iran it was ceasing all business with them.
Cranes from 11 companies have been photographed being using in hangings in Iran, according to United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), the most vocal American organization trying to make economic sanctions on Iran tighter.
For four months, UANI President Mark Wallace, a former US ambassador, has been writing op-ed pieces and speaking out, naming the companies whose cranes have been photographed with men dangling from nooses held up by the cranes.
Tadano of Japan was the first to bow out. (See Iran Times of July 22.) Then UNIC of Japan and Terex of the United States stopped sales. (See Iran Times of August 12.) And now Leibherr of Germany has joined.
UANI said the Liebherr Group is an equipment manufacturer specializing in cranes, aircraft parts, and mining, which was the world’s largest crane company as of 2007.
Shenavar Sazeh Pooyesh (SSP) acts as Liebherr’s exclusive crane dealer in Iran. SSP says on its website that its “major clients in Iran are shipbuilding industries, offshore industries and petrochemical plants.”
The decisions by the four firms to leave Iran appear to be an effort to avoid what business calls “reputational damage.” UANI has been distributing photos showing the firms’ logos on the cranes used in hangings in an obvious effort to embarrass them.
In recent years, the Islamic Republic has carried out most public hangings by lofting the man sentenced to die from the end of a construction crane. The convicted man is usually left dangling from the crane for several hours high above the street crowds to serve as an example to all passersby.
UANI communications director Nathan Carleton said he believes companies send their products to Iran without knowing the troubling consequences.
“No one should be having their products going to Iran, particularly given the Iranian regime’s history of misusing products and money to fund terrorism,” Carleton said.
Wallace wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “It’s no coincidence that Iran’s increased staging of public executions came at the same time protest movements were gaining steam throughout the Middle East. What better way to keep Iranians from having ‘dangerous ideas’ like those of their neighbors?”
Actually, the use of cranes began long before the Arab uprisings started last November. Furthermore, the Islamic Republic is not known to have executed any political prisoners by crane. Political prisoners executed are normally done away with clandestinely. Those executed in public are generally common criminals who have committed heinous crimes. They are executed near the site of one of their crimes.
UANI has launched a “Cranes Campaign,” publishing on its website a list of the 11 international companies that sell cranes to Iran, with photos of the cranes being used as execution devices.
The 11 companies named by UANI are: Tadano of Japan; UNIC of Japan; Kobelco of Japan; Liebherr of Germany; Gottwald of Germany; Zoomlion of China; XCMG of China; Konecranes of Finland; Cargotex of Finland; Terex of the United States and Manitowoc of the United States.
US firms have been barred from selling any goods to Iran since 1995. Terex Corporation, an American industrial equipment manufacturer based in Westport, Connecticut, did its business with Iran legally through foreign subsidiaries, UANI said. Terex is the world’s third largest construction equipment manufacturer following Caterpillar and Komatsu, which UANI said both previously ended their Iran business.
Manitowoc is the other US firm on the list. It isn’t clear if Manitowoc violated US sanctions, if the cranes seen in photos of hangings pre-date the sales ban, or if Iran has bought the cranes through some third-nation sales firm.
