in Paris, lawyers identify the abuses committed by the Iranian regime

5,000 km from Tehran, in this office near the Champs-Élysées, Chirinne Ardakani, a Franco-Iranian lawyer, keeps a macabre count on her computer: the abuses committed by the Iranian regime. Since the death of Mahsa Amini in September, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd accused of having improperly worn the compulsory veil for women in the Islamic Republic of Iran, the revolt has rumbled and inflamed the whole country, all social categories. The Revolutionary Guards respond with machine guns, Tehran refuses to give in and arrests related to the wearing of the veil continue despite the announcement of the abolition of the morality police. According to Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR), more than 500 people have been “killed in the crackdown on protesters in Iran”.

“We can’t humanly identify everything”

So that the crimes committed during this repression are one day punished, a group of lawyers lists the abuses committed by the regime. Among them, Chirinne Ardakani. “When we talk about abuses, the first that comes to mind is the firing of live ammunition at demonstrators. Practices that consist of torturing…”, she explains at the microphone of Europe 1. For now, she has listed 174 “facts”. The photos and videos come from social networks and the media. Each document is sourced, cross-checked, then listed in particular by his colleague Hirbod Deghani-Azar. “You have the date of the event, the place of the event, the nature of the abuse, the name of the victim if identified.”

“In reality, we are overwhelmed. The counter explodes and we cannot humanly manage to identify everything”, loose Chirinne Ardakani.

“It’s not a revolt, it’s the beginning of the end”

On the wall, we see a drawing: Marianne, Phrygian cap and scarf in the colors of Iran, is cutting her hair. The objective of the 13 lawyers of the collective is clear: to obtain convictions “even if we are fully aware of the difficulty it can be to see these appeals succeed. The interest is also to say that it could potentially to serve others, within the framework of a democratic Iran”, affirms the jurist.

“It’s a revolution for me. In fact, it’s not a revolt, it’s the beginning of the end. It’s a matter of time”, affirms for his part an Iranian lawyer who has taken refuge in France, whose the house in Iran has just been tagged and riddled with bullets. A threat from the Islamic Republic, according to the latter, in the face of the work he is carrying out in Paris.