French cops detain 20 at banned Iran opposition rally

PARIS: French police arrested around 20 people in Paris on Saturday as demonstrators gathered for a protest against repression and executions in Iran, defying an official ban.

Several buses arrived at Place Vauban in central Paris despite police banning the rally, citing concerns about potential clashes “in the current particularly tense national and international context”.

Hundreds of protesters gathered for the demonstration aimed to raise awareness about a wave of executions in Iran during the Middle East conflict, an AFP correspondent saw.

Protesters chanted “Down with the dictatorship in Iran” and “French government, shame on you”.

Some held up portraits of Iranians executed by Tehran’s authorities.

The demonstrators were eventually dispersed, and a score of people were arrested, a police source told AFP.

“They arrested about 20 people for no reason,” Afchine Alavi, a member of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), one Iranian opposition group, told AFP.

“On the protesters’ side, there is no violence. Police dispersed many people and are preventing others from joining,” Alavi added.

He said police used pepper spray and that several protesters were injured.

The NCRI is the political arm of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI, also known by its Persian acronym MEK), which is designated a “terrorist” group by Iran.

The group has organised numerous protests in Paris without incident, including in recent months during nationwide anti-government demonstrations in Iran and the US-Israeli conflict with the Islamic Republic.

Organisers filed an emergency motion to overturn the ban but a Paris court upheld it on Saturday.

The protest was organised by Iranian diaspora groups, as well as French and international NGOs.

Rights groups said more than 40 people have been executed in Iran since the war began, many of them people linked to the protests that broke out prior to the war.