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Gathered in Paris to say "stop the death penalty and abuses" in Iran

Demonstration against the death penalty and abuse in Iran. Paris, this Tuesday, May 23, 2023. © Igor Gauquelin / RFI

Text by: Igor Gauquelin Follow

6 min

A demonstration against the death penalty in Iran took place on Tuesday, May 23 in Paris, a few steps from the embassy of the Islamic Republic, since the prefecture had prohibited the rally from taking place in front of the building.

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Terrorist state ", "criminal", "cruel regime", which "kills", "ransoms", "rapes", "violates memories", "loots", "desecrates graves". The authorities of Tehran took for their rank, this Tuesday in Paris, near the embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, protected of course by a prefectural order issued for risk of "disturbing public order".

We are not a disturbance of public order. They are the disturbance of public order!

Dozens of people gathered in Jena Square, unable to approach the Iranian diplomatic representation, on the avenue, "to say stop to the death penalty, stop executions in Iran". The "drop of water"? The hanging on 19 May of Majid Kazemi, Saleh Mirhashemi and Saeed Yaghoubi in Isfahan, in the centre of the country.

The same day, a sign of a further break in the social schizophrenia that reigns in Iran, residents of the capital had let out their rage from their windows, their balconies, expressing themselves by all means at their disposal. And in France, lawyer Chirinne Ardakani, of the Iran Justice collective, announced on RFI this meeting.

Neda d'Iran, Queers and Feminists for Iran Liberation, Azadi 4 Iran, the Collectif des soignants franco-irans, the Ordre du Barreau de Paris, the Conseil national des Barreaux, the Ligue des droits de l'Homme, the International Federation for Human Rights, the League for the Defence of Human Rights in Iran, Together Against the Death Penalty, the Syndicat des avocats de France and Amnesty International joined the call. Political figures came.

"Three children of the people"

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We are here to participate in the denunciation of the crimes perpetrated in Iran since the death of Mahsa Amini," Jean-Claude Samouiller, president of Amnesty France, told RFI. "Iran is the second most executing state after China," he recalls, "with one particularity: the death penalty is used to subdue dissidents, against the right to demonstrate.

All three men were given an unfair trial. We consider this to be a state crime.

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The pace of executions is intensifying, especially in the last twenty days. We are talking about three hangings a day," said Darya Djavahery-Farsi of the Neda Association of Iran. Participants mention enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, live ammunition, abuses of all kinds, including torture in jails.

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Woman, life, freedom " the demonstrators chanted many times. "When Iranian women break their chains, women around the world move forward with her," read a placard in the audience. Or again: "Silence, we hang", but also "Poisoned schoolgirls, infanticidal regime, complicit silence of Macron".

The elected representatives of the Republic, including the Vice-President of the National Assembly Valérie Rabault, listening to speeches during the demonstration against the death penalty in Iran. Paris, May 23, 2023. © Igor Gauquelin / RFI

Among the French political figures: the vice-president of the National Assembly Valérie Rabault (PS), her comrades the socialist deputies Jérôme Guedj or Hervé Saulignac, but also their ecologist colleague Marine Tondelier or the president of the group La France insoumise at the Palais Bourbon, Mathilde Panot.

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When I received the message announcing the executions last Friday, I couldn't hold back my emotions. Mr. Guedj told the crowd, recalling that the tortured were "three children of the people", workers. "We were seized with horror," added Ms. Panot, hailing "the courageous mobilization of the men and women of Isfahan."

Since September 16, the Iranian people have been engaged in a revolutionary process.

And the leader of the LFI deputies to push "the power of the mullahs", which holds "only by force", she said, before expressing her deep concern and addressing her thoughts to Shahram Maarouf Mola, 22, convicted of "war against God", "moharebeh", and whom she sponsors. "I think of him. I think of his loved ones. Every minute counts.

"The Iranian government is blinding peaceful protesters. Eyes for freedom," the sign reads. Paris, this Tuesday, May 23, 2023. © Igor Gauquelin / RFI

'The regime is desperate'

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This is not the first time we have been banned from demonstrating in front of the embassy. It's been years. But here we are! " said Karim Lahidji, FIDH Honorary President, all fire against the "military-clerical regime" of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the "world champion" of executions of political opponents and prisoners of conscience.

This new prefectural decree was very badly perceived as cowardice in the face of Tehran. "It's not a coincidence," said filmmaker Sepideh Farsi, interviewed by RFI. I am thinking of the fact that French hostages have recently returned. I welcome that, but we must not trade with the devil. We must not negotiate under these conditions, because they will start again.

>> READ ALSO: France: rally in Paris for Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris, detained in Iran

The director recalls that despite a decrease in the intensity of international media coverage, the Iranian movement, since the end of 2022, has not stopped, but that since December, the regime had "seemed, changed its strategy", avoiding executions while attacking "schoolgirls with chemical weapons". These hangings have their effect.

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These three men, from prison, had launched an appeal that moved the whole world. " says Sepideh Farsi. And with the mobilization for them in Isfahan, the manifest prevarications of the authorities, "we hoped". Their deaths "really stoked the anger, the despair of these Iranians who continue to fight." "People are no longer afraid," she observes.

I think the regime is desperate. The world must follow us.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has been shaken on its foundations since the end of last summer, and the launch of a considerable protest movement, in the streets, on social networks, in the wake of the death on September 16, 2022 of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, arrested three days earlier by the morality police for a poorly worn veil.

The participants in the demonstration ask the French political class, but also the EU and the entire international community, to seize more vigorously their fight for an "independent, free, secular, democratic" Iran. For example, they demand that the Revolutionary Guards be considered a terrorist organization.

To see Macron go to the UN to get a photo with Raisi is unbearable.

>> READ ALSO: Death penalty in the world: Amnesty International notes an upsurge

Paris denies any "quid pro quo" to Iran

The French Minister of Foreign Affairs assures him, this Tuesday, May 23 on France 2: there would have been no "quid pro quo" to the release of the Frenchman Benjamin Brière and the Franco-Irish Bernard Phelan, released in Iran on May 12.

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I want to say it," insists Catherine Colonna. "We pleaded a lot at different levels with the Iranian authorities given their state of health, which was extremely degraded," explains the head of the Quai d'Orsay.

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They were both sick. Fortunately, they came out of this ordeal," says Ms. Colonna. It should also be noted that the France itself has an embassy in the Islamic Republic of Iran, in Tehran.

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