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Executions in Iran: "Silence is guilty", protests lawyer Chirinne Ardakani

Iran executions © graphics AP - DW

Text by: Darya Kianpour Follow

8 min

On Friday 19 May, three men were executed in Isfahan, central Iran. Majid Kazemi, Saleh Mirhashemi and Saeed Yaghoubi were convicted of "moharebeh" ("war against God") and possession of a weapon during a demonstration. For Chirinne Ardakani, a lawyer at the Val-d'Oise Bar (Île-de-France region) and a member of the Iran Justice collective, it is necessary to "undermine" Iran's normalization strategy vis-à-vis its partners and vis-à-vis the French government. Maintenance.

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RFI: We learned, on the morning of Friday, May 19, of the execution of three other young men, Majid Kazemi, Saleh Mirhashemi and Saeed Yaghoubi in Isfahan. What is your first reaction?

Chirinne Ardakani : This is, of course, appalling. But beyond the indignation, it is proof that the Iranian regime, in reality, is a tyrannical order that is maintained by violence, by cruelty. The death penalty is, after all, the most successful illustration of what cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment can be. It is also a sadistic diet, because the authorities had already been playing with the nerves of the population for several days by postponing the execution of these three young men every day.

Since September 2022 and the death of the young Mahsa Amini, you have been fighting within a collective of lawyers so that one day those responsible for the abuses and crimes committed by the regime in Iran are brought to justice. In the meantime, what can be done to stop the wave of executions in this country?

I believe that the ball is on the side of the international community, silence is guilty. Today, the political cost of these executions must be increased. That is to say, we have a regime that believes that everything is allowed, a regime that carries out mass executions. On May 9, the UN noted that in 2023, at least 209 people were executed. I believe that today it is the responsibility of a number of political leaders, but also of the French Government, to raise their voices and not be hostages to a situation in which the Iranians would brandish the threat of detention on our French hostages, unfortunately, to accuse of a guilty silence in this sequence.

I think we really need to make some noise. This strategy of normalization of Iran vis-à-vis its partners and vis-à-vis the French government must be undermined by highlighting what this regime is, namely a violent, cruel and tyrannical order.

How do you want to mobilize international public opinion and the international community against these executions?

What is important is to continue to talk about it. There was a media footage today on the pension reform, which is obviously an important reform. There is the war in Ukraine that continues. As we can see, the difficulty is the world order in which we find ourselves today, with this kind of alliance of dictators, this alliance between the Chinese, Russian and Iranian axis. And indeed, in the time of this lively news, it is very difficult to keep the Iranian subject alive.

Nevertheless, I believe that our responsibility, at least for civil society groups, lawyers in particular, students, intellectuals, artists, is to continue to talk about what is happening in Iran. This is vital, because it is the mandate given to us by the Iranians who cannot communicate, since today access to the Internet is hindered by the authorities. Journalists are prosecuted for covering the news, lawyers cannot do their job. With this repression behind closed doors and the executions that continue, our responsibility is to continue to talk about it so that French citizens, and more broadly all humanists and human rights defenders, bring this subject to life and put at odds the Iranian authorities who are trying to demonize themselves at the price of a strategy of normalization.

But concretely, whatcan the international community do?

I am not a diplomat, I believe that everyone must have their rightful place in mind. I am a lawyer. What is certain from a strictly legal point of view is that the Iranian state today is on the side of an extremely flagrant violation of fundamental human rights. So the question that arises is whether a government, a regime like the Iranian regime, which carries out forced confessions, which are documented, which carries out a certain number of executions, infanticide, rape of a number of detainees, which practises hostage-taking, which is obviously again a manifestation of organised crime, There is no doubt, from a human rights perspective, that this regime cannot be an interlocutor in any case if human rights are still considered to have value and that a number of international treaties must be respected. Iran does not place itself on that side, it is an understatement to say, and the question today of the legitimacy of this interlocutor, who moreover no longer has any legitimacy inside the country and is maintained only by force and violence, I believe must question our political leaders, but more broadly the Quai d'Orsay and the diplomatic authority.

A few days ago, the representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran was appointed President of the Social Forum of the Human Rights Council. What do you think? Don't you say that your efforts for justice will come up against a political and diplomatic reality?

What I believe above all is that everyone must do their job. As I told you, I am not a diplomat. The diplomatic authorities are playing their part, that is their role. As human rights activists, we must play ours. Our responsibility, as part of civil society collectives, is not to wait vertically for international authorities, a number of organizations and institutions to mobilize. It is up to us to ensure that these institutions hear us, and I believe that we will only succeed in denouncing Iranian policy, but above all double standards.

I will take an example: I do not want to choose between my French compatriots who are detained in Iran at the cost of an organized crime operation, since it is a hostage-taking, as we know. This detention in reality is quite arbitrary. Our four French compatriots who are still detained in Iranian jails, this is really a racketeering operation that is not legally justified. As a citizen, I do not have to choose between my French compatriots and my Iranian compatriots who are also subject to violations of their human rights. The responsibility in any case of political leaders and more broadly of international organizations is not to put these human rights violations in competition, it is to say that the lives of our compatriots are equal and that we must be as intransigent for the fate of Iranians as with our compatriots, since they all have the right to respect for fundamental rights, that is, the right to live in dignity, to be free and not to be arbitrarily detained. That is the message I may have to take to the United Nations if I go there again for the next summit. But really, the meaning of my reflection is to say that citizens should not always wait for the action of organizations, it is up to them to do this work. This is also the reason why we are already calling, with a number of collectives, and we are precisely in the process of drafting this appeal to you as I speak to you, an appeal to the French political class in general and to the political parties to take up this issue and to gather in front of the Iranian embassy in Paris to question the Iranian authorities on these mass executions. And I believe that it is the role of the France, which has always held its abolitionist rank, to take part in this debate. In any case, this is what is expected of the Iranians.

► Read also: Death penalty in the world: Amnesty International notes an upsurge

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