It has been a year since the death of Kurdish woman Jina Mahsa Amini in Iran. The protests that flared up at that time were cruelly suppressed. The regime is less willing than ever to compromise, including in the case of EU citizens convicted in Iran. They face long prison sentences or death – in order to blackmail the governments. A cruel model of success.
The call from Tehran comes with German punctuality. Here, in the south of Cologne, in Mariam Claren’s tidy living room, it is 10:30 a.m., in the north of Tehran it is 12. The mother reports from the general women’s wing in Evin Prison. She’s not allowed to make calls abroad, so she called the approved number of a niece in the Iranian city of Shiraz, and her daughter in Germany put her on the call. The Revolutionary Guards record the conversation. “Salam,” said Claren, “hello, Mommy.”