Chirinne Ardakani makes an appointment at Le Temps des Cerises, a bistro located in the 4e district of Paris with a name inspired by the song which, associated with the Commune (1871), evokes hope and bloodshed. For six months, the 31-year-old Franco-Iranian lawyer has also participated in the uprising of a people for their freedom. On September 16, 2022, Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian Kurd, died in Tehran after being arrested by the vice squad. This triggered an unprecedented protest, fiercely suppressed by the mullahs’ regime. “I said to myself that the diaspora should take over from the Iranians who were paying a heavy price, she says. My reflex was to call my peers. »
In the fall, helped by word of mouth and goodwill, Chirinne Ardakani sets up Iran Justice, a “legal task force” now strong with about fifteen lawyers, jurists and translators. This close-knit band is preparing to file a complaint with the Paris prosecutor against Hossein Salami, head of the Revolutionary Guards and author of death threats against the pro-protesters diaspora. “A fatwa that does not say its name”, slice the avocado. Since the threats have been widely disseminated, Franco-Iranians are victims of them and French justice is therefore competent to investigate a complaint, believes the collective.
Its members see it as a first test before prosecuting those responsible for the regime for crimes against their citizens. A go-getter and charismatic, Chirinne Ardakani managed to get 100 French parliamentarians to sponsor demonstrators sentenced to death. At the end of March, the lawyer will speak at the United Nations Human Rights Council to discuss the ongoing repression.
A terrible census
A specialist in criminal law and immigration law, born in Paris to a nurse and a doctor who were both Iranians, Chirinne Ardakani grew up “in a very French environment” and maintains a long vaporous link with the country of his parents. A law student, she was an activist at the UNEF, where she forged her “culture of engagement”. But his attachment to Iran is resurfacing. In September 2022, the lawyer is struck by the abuses of a regime capable of killing children. While the diaspora is traditionally divided between nostalgic for the monarchy and left-wing activists on the line of “Neither Shah nor Mullah” the team, apolitical, straddles the fray. “The older generations are marked by these dissensions, but many of us were born in France, note Chirinne Ardakani. We are a bit like white pages. »
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