Iranian activists in Europe call on Macron to support the "national uprising" of the Iranian people
Ten days after Emmanuel Macron met with Ebrahim Raisi on the sidelines of the 77th United Nations General Assembly, a number of Iranians living in Europe wrote to the French President asking him if he didn't think the meeting "displeased many Iranians."
Referring to the "nationwide uprising of the Iranian people that continues following the death of Mahsa (Zina) Amini," the signatories of the letter described Ebrahim Raisi as "one of the accused in the killing of thousands of innocent Iranian prisoners in Iranian prisons in the summer of 1988."
The letter to Mr. Macron was signed by a number of journalists, academics, and political activists in Europe, including some in France.
Emmanuel Macron met with Ebrahim Raisi in New York on September 10. According to him, the main topic of the meeting was efforts to revive the JCPOA.
That meeting took place six days after Mahsa Amini was violently arrested in Tehran by the "Moral Security Police Patrol" and four days after her death was officially announced in a Tehran hospital.
Since then, the French president has neither reacted to the incident nor commented on it on social media.
Protests against the death of Mahsa Amini first sparked in the cities of Sanandaj and Saqqez in Kurdistan, Mahsa's home province, and spread to more than a hundred cities in Iran in the following days.
However, at the end of the meeting with Ebrahim Raisi, while not much news about the Iranian protests had yet been reflected in the world, Mr. Macron told BBC Persian that he had also discussed the issue of "violence" in Iranian society and "the need to respect women's rights" with the Iranian President.
According to Ebrahim Raisi's aides, in response to Emmanuel Macron's statements, he recalled the violent response of the French police during the long "yellow vest" protests.
During the President of the Islamic Republic's presence in New York, apart from the President of France and the President of Switzerland, whose country protects America's interests towards Iran, few officials from Western countries met with him.
Iranian media reported that the French president carried a message about efforts to revive the JCPOA, and the Swiss president had a separate message, to which Ebrahim Raisi responded by saying what was the point of meeting with those who were malicious.
The content of this response apparently suggests that the presidents of France and Switzerland had been working on the possibility of a direct meeting between Iranian and American officials, at least at the diplomatic level, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
The Iranian signatories of a letter sent to Emmanuel Macron have called on him to support the Iranian people's protest movement in "this sensitive situation" and "not to leave the Iranian people alone in their fight against the Islamic Republic of Iran, taking advantage of the position he holds in Europe and the world."
European and American leaders, who have strongly condemned the recent violence in Iran, still emphasize that this is separate from efforts to conclude the JCPOA negotiations.
Ebrahim Raisi stated on the evening television program on the Khabar Channel on October 26 that he told Emmanuel Macron that French buildings are older than America and that he should not allow France to be portrayed as being under the influence of others.
On October 25, the French Foreign Ministry issued a statement, "strongly condemning the violence, arbitrary arrests, pressure and detention of journalists, violations of women's rights and freedom of expression, and severe restrictions on the internet in Iran."
The protests in Iran over the past two weeks have received widespread coverage in the French media, and have even been cited as signs of a new "revolution."
In recent days, French police have violently clashed with some protesters in order to prevent Iranian demonstrators in France from approaching the Islamic Republic's embassy in Paris. This, along with the clashes between British police and protesters in London, has been the subject of many reports in Iranian state media accusing the two countries of a one-size-fits-all policy.
