The Wall.St Journal 21Feb2020

A6| Friday, February 21, 2020 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

which have drastically cut
Iran’s oil sales—its largest reve-
nue source—weakened its econ-
omy and helped fuel street pro-
tests against the government.
European governments de-
clined to join the U.S. pressure
campaign in an effort to save
the multination Iran nuclear ac-
cord, from which the Trump ad-
ministration withdrew in 2018.
In recent weeks, European
officials have told the State De-
partment that their govern-
ments will back the Financial
Action Task Force in imposing
the stringent new measures tar-
geting Iran’s financial system,
said the U.S. and allied officials.
The task force comprises 39
member countries and organi-
zations. It sets guidelines to
combat financing and money
laundering used by terrorists,
corrupt politicians and interna-

Continued from page A

country’s legislative assembly.

The Guardian Council, a 12-

member body tasked with up-

holding Islamic law and super-

vising elections, assessed some

16,000 candidates who signed

up to contest the ballot. Only

around 7,200 were allowed to

appear on ballots, the lowest

approval rate in the history of

the Islamic Republic. About

one-fourth of the current law-

economic woes, which have

been aggravated by sanctions

the U.S. imposed after pulling

out of the 2015 nuclear deal. A

second wave of unrest fol-

lowed the Iranian military’s

downing of a Ukrainian air-

liner in January and its at-

tempt to cover it up.

Tehran has carefully selected

which candidates are allowed

to run for the 290 seats in the

to impeaching ministers.

“The fact that Iran has elec-

tions, albeit managed ones, is

used to demonstrate that the

Islamic Republic is more legit-

imate than other countries in

the region,” she said.

That image is especially im-

portant now, experts say. In

November, Iranian authorities

violently suppressed a wave of

protests over the country’s

“One mustn’t see this crime

in isolation. We must fight

against the poison that is in-

jected into our society by the

AfD and others,” said Norbert

Röttgen, who is running for the

leadership of Ms. Merkel’s

Christian Democratic Union.

Prosecutors say the shoot-

ing spree late Wednesday in

the town of Hanau was carried

out by a 43-year-old German

who acted alone and was likely

psychologically unstable. The

shooter, identified only as To-

bias R., targeted a tobacco

lounge frequented by people

of Turkish and Middle Eastern

origin and shops in migrant

neighborhoods.

All nine of those who were

killed in the shooting rampage

were of immigrant back-

ground, according to Peter

Frank, Germany’s chief federal

prosecutor. Six people were

wounded in the assault.

Police found a text on the

suspect’s website that in-

cluded racist language but was

largely incoherent. In his text

and videos posted on his web-

site and YouTube, the suspect

called for the extermination of

entire nations and ethnic

groups, as well as German citi-

zens who he described as not

of pure race. His writings also

included rambling references

to his mother, soccer, Holly-

wood films and celebrities

such as actress Jennifer Lopez.

Alexander Gauland, AfD

floor leader and honorary

chairman, rejected the sugges-

tion from Ms. Merkel’s allies

that the attack was in any way

connected to the party, saying

that the perpetrator had been

mentally disturbed and didn’t

have a clear political message.

“It is absurd and shabby to

use such an event to attack po-

litical opponents,” Mr. Gauland

told reporters on Thursday.

Mr. Gauland prompted con-

troversy in 2018 when he said

that National-Socialism was a

small part of German history.

Others in his party have played

down the crimes of Adolf Hitler.

German politics, long domi-

nated by the traditional parties

of the center, has grown more

polarized after almost two mil-

lion asylum seekers entered the

country since 2015.

The shooting took place

around 10 p.m. Wednesday,

when the gunman opened fire

on patrons at the Midnight

Shisha Bar and then fled in a

dark vehicle, police said. He

then resumed shooting in two

other parts of town, targeting a

sports betting shop and a fast-

food bar frequented by people

of immigrant origin, among

them many of Turkish and

Kurdish extraction.

WORLD NEWS

The suspect and a 72-year-

old woman believed to be his

mother were later found dead

at his house, according to local

authorities. Police found a gun

next to the dead suspect.

A young man identified by

German TV as Iskender M. was

eating at the Arena Bar with

roughly a dozen people when

the gunman entered and began

systematically gunning down

patrons. He told Turkish TV in

an interview translated by Ger-

man TV channels from a hospi-

tal that he hid behind a wall

and got shot in the shoulder.

People were all dropping to

the floor and lay on top of each

other, Iskender M. recalled,

tears filling his eyes. A man ly-

ing below him whispered that

he couldn’t breathe. “He had a

hole in his neck....I told him to

say his last prayers,” he said.

Police later tracked the sus-

pect’s getaway car to the neigh-

borhood of Hanau-Kesselstadt.

They cordoned off the owner’s

address and stormed the house,

finding the dead bodies of the

presumed attacker and a

woman believed to be his

mother, police said. The woman

had gunshot wounds caused by

the weapon used by the perpe-

trator, police said.

The suspect was a member

of a shooting club and owned

a hunting license, which al-

lowed him to legally purchase

firearms that are otherwise

strictly regulated in Germany,

police said.

The attacker appeared to

have radicalized himself on

the internet, according to

Tarek Al-Wazir, a member of

the government in Hesse.

“The whole society needs to

consider a response to these

developments,” Mr. Al-Wazir

told German tabloid newspa-

per Bild.

BERLIN—A gunman killed at
least nine people in an immi-
grant neighborhood near
Frankfurt after writing a screed
calling for the extermination of
entire ethnic groups, authori-
ties said, fueling a tense politi-
cal debate over the rise of far-
right extremism in Germany.
Chancellor Angela Merkel
said in a televised address that
racism was a poison that was
likely behind the assault and
other recent crimes in Ger-
many. “There are many indica-
tions that the perpetrator acted
out of far-right and racist mo-
tives, driven by hatred of peo-
ple of different origin, different
faith or different appearance,”
Ms. Merkel said.
The attack, which authori-
ties said was committed by a
mentally ill man, has raised
fresh concern about a rising
far-right terrorist threat in Ger-
many after a string of attacks
and foiled conspiracies in the
past year, including an attack
on a synagogue on Yom Kippur
last year. Members of Ms.
Merkel’s conservative party
have connected a rise in hate
crimes to a rival political party,
the Alternative for Germany,
and its anti-immigrant and
anti-Islam rhetoric.
The AfD has risen in popu-
larity since the 2015 refugee
crisis to become the largest
opposition group in parlia-
ment, although recent polls
have showed its popularity has
plateaued.

BYBOJANPANCEVSKI
ANDRUTHBENDER

Far-Right Extremism in German Focus

Merkel allies link rise

in hate attacks to rival

party after a gunman

kills at least nine people

People held a vigil Thursday for the victims of an attack near Frankfurt a day earlier. Chancellor Angela Merkel decried racism as a ‘poison.’

PATRICK HERTZOG/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

MOSCOW—The U.S. and

Britain joined Georgia in blam-

ing Russia for a large-scale cy-

berattack that knocked out

thousands of government, pri-

vate and media websites in the

Caucasus country in October.

Secretary of State Mike

Pompeo and British Foreign

Secretary Dominic Raab attri-

buted the attack to the GRU,

the Russian military spy

agency that Western officials

allege is responsible for a raft

of overseas operations, includ-

ing an attempt to interfere

with the 2016 U.S. presidential

campaign.

The attack on Oct. 28 tar-

geted the office of Georgia’s

president and local municipal-

ity offices. It disrupted several

thousand government and pri-

vately run websites, according

to statements from the Geor-

gian, U.S. and U.K. govern-

ments Thursday. The attack in-

terrupted broadcasts of at least

two major television stations.

Mr. Pompeo described the at-

tack as evidence of “a continu-

ing pattern of reckless Russian

GRU cyber operations against a

number of countries” and called

on Moscow to stop undermining

other governments.

Russia’s government dis-

missed the accusation. “Russia

did not intend to, and is not

going to, interfere in any way

in the internal affairs of Geor-

gia in any shape or form,”

Deputy Foreign Minister An-

drei Rudenko told state news

agency RIA Novosti.

Russia and Georgia have a

history of recent conflict. The

neighbors fought a five-day

war in 2008 over Georgia’s re-

gions of South Ossetia and Ab-

khazia that left hundreds of

people dead and displaced

35,000 more. Moscow recog-

nizes the two breakaway terri-

tories as independent states,

but most countries consider

them parts of Georgia.

Under Russian President

Vladimir Putin, the agency has

been instrumental in helping

the Kremlin achieve its foreign

objectives of boosting regional

and global influence, indepen-

dent experts say.

In the October cyberattack,

hackers targeted a range of

Georgian web service provid-

ers and defaced websites, ac-

cording to the U.S. and the U.K.

BYGEORGIKANTCHEV

Russia

Blamed for

Cyberattack

On Georgia

makers were among those

banned from running.

President Hassan Rouhani,

a moderate in Iran’s political

system, has complained that

too many candidates were

ruled out from his side of the

aisle. But as a stalwart of the

Islamic Republic, he has urged

Iranians to cast their ballots to

stand “against the global im-

perialism for our children.”

“We should know that our

mass presence and enthusias-

tic queues...will upset America,

while our absence will make

America happy,” he said in a

cabinet meeting broadcast on

state television.

Social-media users, impris-

oned activists and Iranians

abroad have led the boycott

calls. A recent poll by the non-

governmental Iranian Students

Polling Agency said only 21%

of residents in Tehran plan to

vote. A recent outbreak of the

coronavirus here may also

hurt the election turnout. Au-

thorities on Thursday an-

nounced emergency measures

in the central city of Qom af-

ter the death of two people di-

agnosed with Covid-19, the

disease caused by the virus.

“Compared to the past, this

time there is not much enthu-

siasm about the elections,”

said Hamidreza Jalaeipour, a

lecturer in political sociology

at Tehran University.

TEHRAN—Iran’s leadership
is pushing for a high turnout
at Friday’s parliamentary elec-
tions, as conservatives seek to
consolidate power in the face
of mounting economic chal-
lenges at home and worsening
tensions with the U.S.
Many Iranians are threaten-
ing to boycott the vote after a
large number of moderate and
reformist candidates were dis-
qualified, with some expressing
frustration over the legislature’s
failure to address concerns such
as the country’s flagging econ-
omy or strict Islamic laws.
“I won’t be part of the show
as long as I can’t see my fa-
vorite candidate who I genu-
inely support and believe in. I
won’t choose between bad and
worse anymore,” said a 53-
year-old homemaker here in
the capital.
Since the 1979 Islamic Revo-
lution, elections have been an
important way for Iran’s estab-
lishment to build consensus at
home and create an outward
display of strength, said Sanam
Vakil, deputy director of the
Middle East and North Africa
Program at Chatham House, a
London think tank. Among its
other tasks, the legislature
passes laws and can challenge
government policy, in addition

BYARESUEQBALI
ANDSUNEENGELRASMUSSEN

Iranians Vote Amid Strains at Home, Abroad

A couple walking past electoral posters in Tehran a day before Friday’s parliamentary elections.

ABEDIN TAHERKENAREH/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK

tional criminal organizations

involved in illegal arms trade,

drug-trafficking and sex slavery.

Its member-country repre-

sentatives have been meeting

this week in Paris and will hold

a full plenary session Friday

during which the decision on

Iran’s listing is expected to be

finalized, the officials said.

The task force’s secretariat

declined to comment. Iran’s

representative office at the

United Nations didn’t immedi-

ately respond to a request for

comment. A spokesman for its

embassy in Paris declined to

comment.

Europe has helped keep Iran

off the blacklist despite re-

peated criticisms from the task

force that Tehran was failing to

meet a 2016 commitment to

overhaul its illicit-finance regu-

lations.

Specifically, the task force

says that Iran hasn’t adequately

criminalized terror financing,

identified and frozen terrorist

assets or regulated its financial

system against illicit transac-

tions. For example, Iran doesn’t

rigorously monitor transaction

data required to prevent money

laundering.

“Iran has failed to fulfill its

commitments,” U.S. Secretary

of State Mike Pompeo said in a

statement last week ahead of

the task force’s meeting. “It is

past time for Iran to complete

the action plan it agreed to in

June 2016 or face the full re-im-

position of countermeasures.”

Iran would join North Korea

as the only country targeted

under the task force’s “call for

action” designation for failing

to implement regulations to de-

tect and prevent terrorism fi-

nancing and money laundering

by criminal organizations.

The new sanctions include

restrictions on financial rela-

tionships with Iranian busi-

nesses, more stringent review

of all financial transactions

linked to Iran, required report-

ing of all such transactions, and

prohibitions on Iranian banks

establishing new foreign

branches and foreign banks set-

ting up offices in Iran.

At its last meeting in Octo-

ber, the task force told Tehran

it risked blacklist sanctions if it

failed to approve legislation au-

thorizing the U.N. conventions

on countering illicit finance.

Iran’s parliament passed the

legislation, but the Guardian

Council, the clerical panel that

vets legislation for congruity

with its interpretation of Is-

lamic law, disapproved.

A separate council meant to

arbitrate such disagreements

and whose members are also

appointed by Iran’s supreme

leader has yet to rule on the

matter.

Separately, the U.S. levied

new sanctions against five top

officials linked to Supreme

Leader Ali Khameni who sit on

those two councils and on

Iran’s Elections Supervisions

Committee.

The Treasury Department

said it is imposing the sanc-

tions for allegedly preventing

free and fair elections, which

Iran will hold Friday. Under

powers to vet political candi-

dates, the governing bodies dis-

qualified thousands of politi-

cians ahead of the election.

The U.S. sanctions freeze any

assets the five officials have in

U.S. jurisdictions. “The Su-

preme Leader uses his appoin-

tees to deprive the Iranian peo-

ple of free and fair elections by

blocking candidates that do not

mirror his radical views,” the

Treasury said.

The terror-financing provi-

sions in the Iranian legislation

put clerical leaders in a bind,

because they would run counter

to the government’s support of

internationally-recognized ter-

ror groups such as Hezbollah

and Hamas that act as Iran’s in-

ternational proxies.

Given that Iran’s hard-liners

are expected by U.S. officials

and Iran-watchers to increase

their influence in the elections

this week, the likelihood of Iran

implementing the task force’s

requirements appears even

more remote.

As the U.S. sanctions pres-

sure escalated, Iran responded

by saying it no longer would

abide by restrictions the deal

imposed on its production of

enriched uranium and by step-

ping up attacks on Western in-

terests in the Middle East.

—Sune Engel Rasmussen

contributed to this article.

Iran Set to

Face More

Pressure

The new sanctions

include limits on ties

with the country’s

businesses.