The Administrative Tribunal of Paris handed down a judgment on Friday to overturn a decision of the French police to ban the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI) from holding demonstrations. The PMOI planned to have a rally on July 1 to demand the dismissal of the Mullah’s regime aiming to “support the uprising of the Iranian people for freedom and democracy and sensitizing public opinion on the unprecedented increase in the number of executions in Iran.”
The French police’s decision to ban the rallies was based on the growing intensity of protests since the death of Masha Amini in September 2022.The prefect of police argued that the ban is justified on the grounds that the rally could have caused a risk of disturbances to public order. The police also noted that PMOI and its demonstration have a history of being the focus of attempted attacks such as in 2018 when two Belgian and an Iranian diplomat based in Vienna planned a bomb attack in Villepinte to target the PMOI. Iran had also initiated a cyberattack in 2022 which paralysed public administration serves in Albania to force the cancellation of a PMOI-planned event. The cyberattack rendered the severance of diplomatic ties between Iran and Albania. The French police also stated that the shootings and attempted fire targeting the premises of Saint-Ouen-l’Aumône housing the National Council of Resistance of Iran and the CIMA association between May and mid-June showed a real threat to public order.
However, the tribunal also observed that despite the above-mentioned events, at least 7 demonstrations organised by the Iranian opposition took place in Paris without being banned by the Prefect of Police or causing disturbance to public order. In addition, PMOI has also pledged to limit the event to a static gathering on June 28 after the additional mobilisation of police following the shooting of a local teenager by the police. The tribunal concluded that the applicant has successfully proved in court that the police ban on a static demonstration is an excessive erosion of the freedom of assembly.
