The Iranian-American dissident Masih Alinejad, at the origin of several campaigns against the compulsory wearing of the veil in the Islamic Republic of Iran, met Emmanuel Macron on Friday evening November 11. This interview, the first between an Iranian opposition figure and the leader of a great power, comes as Iran has been through an unprecedented uprising since mid-September, repressed in blood. According to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), at least 328 civilians were killed, including 50 children.
Friday evening, the photo of Masih Alinejad, aged 46 and living in the United States, shaking hands with the French president was immediately published in the Persian-speaking media hosted abroad. Three other Iranian women took part in this meeting: Ladane Boroumand, co-founder of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center, a non-governmental organization which has been working to promote human rights in Iran since 2002; Shima Babaie, a former political prisoner arrested for having participated in the wave of protest at the end of 2017-beginning of 2018, and now exiled in Belgium; and Roya Majidi, whose mother, Minou, was killed by the regime in a protest at the start of the ongoing uprising. The photo of this 25-year-old Iranian, with a determined look, shaved head, clutching her cut hair in her hand next to her mother’s grave in Sanadaj (a Kurdish city in Iran), has become one of the strong images of the protest. in Iran.
If, for the moment, nothing has filtered on the content of the exchanges between the French president and these three Iranian dissidents, the simple fact that he met them sends a strong message of support to those who oppose the Islamic Republic of Iran, according to Masih Alinejad. The world met her in her hotel in Paris the day before her interview with the head of state. She then explained her approach to us: “The Iranians are on the streets. I am not asking anyone to intervene for the overthrow of the regime. But recognize the voice of the Iranian people. We are not asking that you save Iranians, but stop saving those who kill them. Leaders like US President Joe Biden will eventually save the Islamic Republic by continuing nuclear talks. »
Prevent executions
For more than a year, Tehran and the signatories to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal (the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China and Germany) have resumed talks so that the United States return to this pact, unilaterally denounced by former US President Donald Trump in 2018. An American exit which allowed Tehran to free itself from the rules of the agreement, by resuming a large number of its nuclear activities, suspended until the. The countries in favor of the agreement therefore want to give diplomacy a chance, so that Tehran conforms again to the rules of the pact. But Iranian opponents fear that the resumption of the agreement will lead to the lifting of international sanctions against Tehran and therefore allow the regime to benefit from tens of billions of Iranian funds frozen abroad.
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