It is the nightmare of any foreign journalist reporting from authoritarian countries. Let our work become a pretext for repression. May those who had the courage to testify pay dearly after our departure.
Nowhere in the world was I more afraid for those I left behind than in Iran, where I went on assignment several times between 2001 and 2013.
I had to cancel interviews, fearing to lead the forces of order – which I knew were very close – directly to those who wanted to denounce their abuses. I changed names, reinvented identities while remaining faithful to events, in the hope of protecting my sources.
It is therefore with immense pangs of heart that I have followed over the past two weeks a spat on Twitter between the journalist of the Figaro Georges Malbrunot and the Letters to Tehran account, run by a former blogger from Release.
At the heart of the controversy: a video posted online on May 30 by Mr. Malbrunot, who had just returned from reporting in Iran. We see young women without the obligatory hijab in a café in Tehran and outside the same café. They chat, walk, ride a bicycle. “The strong image of my report in Iran. Unimaginable a year ago, writes the reporter, specialist in the Middle East, under the video. Iranian women without veils or coats in a bar in Tehran. The women won. But their victory is fragile. The waitress still has a scarf. Religious Police Order. »
Last Thursday, we learned that a muscular raid by the Islamist regime’s militias, the basidjis, took place at the same café. I read it on Letters from Tehran, but the same story – accompanied by videos showing the violent intervention of the militia – also appeared on the Persian language site of the BBC. And on Radio Farda, the Iranian counterpart of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
Many social media users openly criticized the journalist from Figarobelieving that he had endangered the female customers and that he had acted irresponsibly by not blurring their faces.
On the phone, Mr. Malbrunot rejects these accusations out of hand. He says that before using the video, he spoke about it to the owner of the “bar” (the word seems badly chosen, since the sale of alcohol is prohibited in Iran). “The boss told me there was no problem,” says Mr. Malbrunot. He adds that he did not film in secret and that no one came to interrupt him.
He also recalls that these same women who defy the rules of the Islamic Republic know that they are captured by the facial recognition surveillance cameras deployed by the regime since the uprising which followed the death last September of Mahsa Amini. The latter, aged 22, was arrested for improperly wearing the veil and died at the hands of the authorities.
There are several flaws in the reasoning of the colleague from the Figaro.
It would have been the least of things to ask the agreement of the most visible women on the video. How is a café owner entitled to have the right to their image? It’s up to them to decide!
Otherwise, we follow the logic of the regime which treats Iranian women as if they were still under the guardianship of a man. As if they were minors in perpetuity.
Nor can we clear ourselves by noting that the liberticidal government itself spies on these courageous Iranian women. As we say in English, “two wrongs don’t make a right”.
In a situation like this, caution should have been the main adviser.
But that said, it would be completely absurd to put the journalist on trial rather than the hand that holds the machete. Because if there is one thing to remember from this incident, it is that the Iranian authorities are in full-scale repression mode. And this repression has largely gone unnoticed since the eyes of the world – amazed by the courage of young Iranian women last fall – have looked elsewhere.
Since the protests in the fall, more than 20,000 people have been detained. And the executions are going well. In mid-May, the regime killed three men for taking part in protests, bringing the number of executions linked to the “Woman” movement to seven. Life. Freedom “. Wednesday morning, we learned that a Kurdish political prisoner, Himan Mostafayi, had been hanged.
The rebellion takes it for its cold, but is not extinguished for all that.
On May 23, female political prisoners held in the notorious Evin prison demonstrated behind bars. They write letters to protest against the treatment they are subjected to on a daily basis.
There are also signs of rebellion in the universities. Students in Tehran demonstrate holding a big “no” at the end of their arms. Their initiative is starting to snowball.
The standoff between the ayatollahs’ regime and Iranian civil society is not over and it is our duty to continue to follow and show what is happening in the country. Even if, as a precaution, it involves blurring a few faces.