Press release 13 December 2022 : Our hostages in the face of executions in Iran

The Iranian government’s executions of demonstrators place our compatriots held hostage by the government in a radically and tragically new situation. This is particularly true for those who are being held in Evin prison and in Mashhad prison, where the executions have taken place. Capital punishment was only abolished in France in 1981, and we have kept in mind the great abolitionist texts, including the work of Albert Camus. We know from them that the prison inmates immediately understand when an execution is planned in the coming hours and that it is accompanied by protests. We can imagine what our arbitrarily detained compatriots are going through. Among them, Fariba Adelkhah is aware that the desperate regime exterminated thousands of prisoners in 1988 after summary trials in which the current president of the Republic, Ebrahim Raissi, was a direct actor. Several of our compatriots, accused of espionage, are facing the death penalty. European governments must put all their weight behind obtaining the immediate and unconditional release of their nationals and stopping the arbitrary executions carried out by the Islamic Republic.