La Dépêche, 23 November – On the initiative of the Committee of French Mayors for a Democratic Iran (CMFID) and in partnership with the Committee to Support Human Rights in Iran (CSDHI), 580 French mayors* signed an appeal calling for an end to executions in Iran at the Congress of Mayors which ended on Thursday. The appeal was signed by a number of elected representatives from the region, including the Mayor of Montpellier, Michaël Delafosse, and former ministers such as Martine Aubry, Mayor of Lille, and Jean-Michel Baylet, Mayor of Valence d’Agen (and President of the Group La Dépêche).
“According to Amnesty International, Iran alone accounted for 74% of all executions worldwide in 2023” say the French mayors, who note with alarm an increase in executions since the new president took office, with 386 people executed in three months, including several political opponents. The text mentions in particular “Reza Rasaei, arrested during the uprising in November 2022 in Shahriar, in the province of Tehran”.
« Human rights catastrophe »
“We endorse and support Maryam Rajavi’s call for an end to executions in Iran and her firm commitment to the abolition of the death penalty, as set out in her ten-point plan for the future of Iran”, they say, referring to the Iranian opposition leader.
“Iran sadly holds the world record for political executions and executions per capita. The executions ordered by the regime, in the name of God, began with the elimination of the Kurds after the 1979 revolution, intensified with the 1982 genocide, and culminated in 1988 with the massacre of 30,000 political prisoners. These barbaric executions, such as that of the 29 people executed on Bloody Wednesday 7 August 2024, continue to this day”, as Hamid Enayat, a political scientist specializing in Iran, recently reminded La Dépêche. In an article published in our columns in September, he wrote: “The United Nations has adopted seventy resolutions condemning the mullahs’ human rights violations. However, it is regrettable that some Member States are turning a blind eye to the human rights catastrophe in Iran, such as stoning. Don’t they realize that the destruction of human rights on such a scale can no longer be considered an internal Iranian problem?”
In fact, what is happening in Iran concerns countries all over the world, whether it’s a question of women’s rights, supported in particular by the “Woman Life Freedom” movement, launched after the death of Masha Amini on 16 September 2022, or executions, against which political prisoners in twenty prisons go on hunger strike every Tuesday as part of the “No to executions” campaign.
Philippe Rioux * Complete list is available on ladepeche.fr: https://www.ladepeche.fr/2024/11/23/peine-de-mort-580-maires-de-france-signent-un-appel-pour-dire-non-aux-executions-en-iran-12340521.php
