A group of 75 French lawmakers have taken the unusual step of formally sponsoring individual death-row political prisoners in Iran as the country's authorities continue to ramp up executions.The move, taken on June 29 as part of a new National Assembly campaign organized by the Iran Freedom Congress (IFC), marked the IFC's first international human rights campaign since the group's founding earlier this year.Under the sponsorship mechanism, each participating MP publicly attaches their name to an individual prisoner sentenced to death or facing imminent execution to give each case a parliamentary backer and a diplomatic pressure point.
Negin Shiraghaei, a member of the IFC’s Central Council, said the campaign took shape almost immediately after the congress's founding, calling the rise in executions an urgent priority "from literally the first day," despite the body being less than two months old.Speaking to RFE/RL’s Radio Farda, she said that the choice of France was deliberate, citing the country's abolition of capital punishment 45 years ago as added leverage.Shiraghaei described the sponsorship campaign as working on multiple levels.Public pressure from foreign parliamentarians is felt both by Tehran and by their own governments, she said, while stressing that symbolic measures alone are "not enough by themselves" and need to be paired with concrete follow-through.Among the IFC's specific requests, she said, is that foreign embassies request daily physical observers at the trials of those facing execution -- a demand Tehran "may not even agree" to, but one meant to signal that defendants have international backing.Shiraghaei also argued that human rights should be made a nonnegotiable item in any future talks between Western governments and Tehran, criticizing what she called a pattern of human rights being set aside once economic or political interests are at stake in negotiations.
