Iranians are called to elect the next president of the Islamic Republic this Friday, June 28. This is the second electoral meeting after the Women, Life, Freedom movement that shook the Islamic Republic of Iran. The legislative elections last March were marked by a record official abstention rate of 59%. This time, a reformer was allowed to run, but many Iranians say they are disillusioned. This is the case for a large part of the diaspora. Interview with Aïda Tavakoli, Franco-Iranian, president of the association We Are Iranian Students.
RFI: Within your association of Iranian students abroad, how do you take part in the debates surrounding the Iranian presidential election?
Aida Tavakoli* : We published a joint forum with students from within theIran and also Iranian student associations in the United States and Canada. We call not to vote.
There has been much debate among Iranian academics inside the country about whether to vote for reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian. Some professors spoke in favor of this vote. In response, students recalled that Pezeshkian had played a role in repressions, particularly of student movements. This is ultimately the case for all candidates. On the other hand, the candidates go through the sieve of a selection by the Supreme Guide who, after the death of President Raïssirecalled that everything was under control since it is he who governs the country anyway.
If it is true that there were differences between the different mandates between reformists and conservatives, there is also a guiding principle which is the extremely brutal and violent repression of the population, the disappearance of any space of freedom, democracy, freedom of expression. In fact, everything that constitutes a democracy does not exist in Iran, we really have a dictatorial, totalitarian form. And so the vote has no meaning. So, that was the subject of this column, it was to say: this vote, in these conditions, has absolutely no meaning.
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And around you, Iranians that you know in France, are there people who are wondering about going to vote?
Around me, no. But I have listened to a lot of debates that are currently taking place in Iran on the question of this vote. And what is interesting is that it is not the hope of a potential change that encourages the vote for Pezeshkian. It is rather the idea that perhaps a reformist who does not have an absolutely conservative and totalitarian line can enter the government circuit and be able to bring a crack somewhere. For example, the candidate Jalili who is the favorite of the supreme guide which would allow it to form a single bloc around ultra-conservative ideology. So, the vote is presented as a kind of strategy, a step towards the crack and fall of the regime.
Between the closure of any space of freedom in Iran and the distance that life imposes on you abroad, how does your association manage to remain active?
Our role here as a diaspora, and this has been the case since fall 2022, is first and foremost to shed light on the repression taking place in Iran. We feel like it’s symbolic and there’s not much point in talking about it other than depressing us all. But it actually saves lives.
The regime needs to restore its image on the international scene, in any case to ensure that it once again has a place in the concert of nations. It is an economic necessity for the survival of the Islamic regime. For example, a major international campaign was led against the death sentence of Toomaj Salehi. This rapper denounced in his lyrics corruption, deprivation of liberty and the repression of the Islamic regime. His death sentence was recently overturned. It is obviously linked to the proximity of the presidential election to appease the population, but international pressure saved his life. Take also the case of the 20,000 prisoners of the fall of 2022, arrested for having demonstrated for “Women, Life, Freedom”, their average age was 17 years old. Following the opening of the UN special investigation into this repression, 10,000 of these 20,000 prisoners were released. These 10,000 people are no longer in prison because the light has been shed and our international institutions, whether the European Parliament or the UN, have been contacted to put pressure on this regime.
Yesterday, on the eve of the presidential election, more than 30 associations, including ours, also called for the application of a resolution voted in 2023 in the European Parliament. The actions and sanctions against Iranian power provided for in this text must enter into European executive circuits.
In summary, the entire action of the diaspora is, on the one hand, to shed light and, on the other hand, to get our democratic governments to sanction the Islamic regime so that the repressive apparatus is weakened and the space for expression of the Iranian population is finally freed.
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The war in Gaza has also created a new diplomatic relationship between Western countries and Iran. Are you still able to find political interlocutors to talk about the Iranian population?
It is true that it was much easier in 2022 and the discourse that we are carrying is more difficult to hear. The Gazan population like the Iranian population are both taken hostage by regimes that are totalitarian and fanatic. Hamas and the Islamic regime share many political and ideological lines with the same methods of repression of their population. The great tragedy of Palestinian youth, particularly Gazan, is that they are also taken hostage by the Israeli occupation.
The Iranian regime is exploiting this conflict to improve its image in the eyes of Arab countries, when it is only a question of power and discrediting Western regimes. In reality, this discrediting of Western regimes could be done on the graves of all Palestinians, and it would suit them very well too. It is obvious when we see that the rights of their own Iranian population and the lives of Iranians matter little to them.
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In 2022, when the Women, Life and Freedom movement shook the Islamic Republic and an alternative had to be presented, the distance between the diaspora and the Iranian population was presented as an obstacle to a common fight. What do you think about this?
I think the unity and unison at the beginning of this revolution was absolutely extraordinary, whether it was for the people inside Iran or for the diaspora outside, beyond all political sensitivities, generations, ethnicities, religious confessions. All united behind this slogan “Woman, life, freedom”. As this movement progresses, I think it is completely healthy that everyone’s aspirations for the future of Iran become clearer because that means that the movement is theorizing, it is politicizing and it is building itself for the future.
So, obviously we can’t expect a population of 88 million inside Iran and 8 million Iranians outside Iran to all be in absolute agreement. But democratic spaces for debate are beginning to emerge. And that’s what’s important, is that alternative media, private channels, our platforms on social networks, today, are relaying militant words that are politically constructed, that carry aspirations and programs for the future of Iran. And I think that’s very good news.
* Aïda Tavakoli is Franco-Iranian, president of the We Are Iranian Students association formed in 2022 after the death of Jina Mahsa Amini and the Femme Vie Liberté uprising. This 1901 law association is committed to protecting the rights of Iranian students and more broadly the Iranian people.
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