(Lyon) “When you watch this video, I will be dead”: an Iranian man committed suicide on Monday by jumping into the Rhône in Lyon, in central-eastern France, so, he says in a posthumous video, to draw attention to the situation in his country shaken by demonstrations.
Mohammad Moradi, 38, was found drowned late Monday, police said. An investigation “in search of the causes of death” has been opened, according to justice.
Iran has been experiencing a wave of protest for two months unprecedented since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. It was born out of demands for women’s rights after the death of Mahsa Amini, arrested for having worn the Islamic veil incorrectly.
Protests for women’s freedom gradually morphed into a broader movement directed against the Islamic regime.
The authorities, who denounce “riots”, arrested thousands of people and sentenced a dozen of them to death for their involvement in this protest movement.
In a report published Tuesday Iran Human Rights (IHR), an NGO based in Oslo, reports 476 demonstrators killed since mid-September.
“The police are attacking people, we have lost a lot of sons and daughters, we have to do something,” said Mr. Moradi in a calm voice in his video posted on several social networks before committing the irreparable.
“I decided to commit suicide in the Rhone river, it is a challenge to show that we, Iranian people, we are very tired of this situation”, he announces.
“When you watch this video, I will be dead”, he continues, before calling for support for the Iranian people in their fight against “extremely violent police and government”.
According to members of the Iranian community, he was a history undergraduate and worked in a restaurant. He lived in Lyon with his wife for three years.
“Mohammad Moradi killed himself to make the voice of the revolution heard in Iran, our voice is not propagated by the Western media”, castigated Timothée Amini, spokesperson for some three thousand members of the community, on Tuesday. Iranian from Lyon during a rally at the scene of the tragedy.
His gesture is “fiercely courageous”, judged his compatriot Lili Mohadjer. Mohammad Moradi “hoped that his death would be one more element for the Western media and governments to support the revolution underway in Iran”.
On his video, “he said that he could not live quietly, comfortably here – he was very well integrated -” while Iranians were killed “at point-blank range”, she added.
In front of many journalists, about forty people placed candles, bouquets of roses and photos of the deceased on the railings, before delivering speeches and songs.
At the beginning of December, the Iranian authorities made a gesture towards the demonstrators, by announcing the dissolution of the morality police. But in the process, the authorities executed by hanging two young men convicted in connection with the demonstrations.