Speaking at the Free Iran 2026 World Summit in Paris, prominent lawyer and Chairwoman of the Board of Directors of the European Lawyers Foundation Dominique Attias delivered a fiery condemnation of the French government’s last-minute administrative ban on a peaceful rally supporting the Iranian Resistance. The restriction halted a massive mobilization that intended to bring 100,000 global demonstrators to the streets of Paris following direct diplomatic pressure from the Tehran regime.
Attias expressed deep anger, declaring that the French Republic had dishonored itself by prioritizing the appeasement of tyrants over constitutional human rights. She fiercely rejected the government’s invocation of “public order” to block unarmed citizens, branding the decision as diplomatic surrender and “cowardice dressed up as legality.”
Highlighting her background as a lawyer defending imprisoned and tortured Iranian women, Attias warned that silencing Western advocacy directly empowers the mullahs, stating that every demonstration banned in Paris tightens the hangman’s rope in Tehran. Vowing never to lower her eyes or ask permission to defend human dignity, Attias committed to challenging the ban across all jurisdictions up to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, closing with the rallying cry: “Zan, Moqavemat, Azadi”—Woman, Resistance, Freedom.
A translated version of Dominique Attias’ speech follows:
Chaque manifestation contre le régime des mollahs interdite en France est une corde supplémentaire passée autour du cou des condamnés à mort en Iran- @AttiasDominique pic.twitter.com/agIlOPIRZH
— Aladdin Touran (@AladdinTouran) June 20, 2026
I am proud to be a woman.
Ladies and gentlemen, friends of Ashraf 3,
There are silences that kill. There are bans that dishonor.
Yes. Yes, Mr. Johnson, we are all disappointed, but more than that. We are very angry, very angry.
Today, it is our Republic, it is my Republic that is dishonoring itself.
A peaceful demonstration had been authorized.
Peaceful: not a single weapon, not a single threat, not a single cry of hate.
Only men and women standing up, who came to express their rejection of the gallows erected in Tehran, Isfahan, [and] Shiraz; who came to say that you cannot hang a nation’s youth without the free world raising its voice.
And now, the government, after having accepted it, bans it.
And now, a judge, invoking public order, validates this retreat.
Public order…
They dare to confront unarmed citizens with “public order,” when they have failed to confront the executioners who kill.
Whose order? What order?
.@AttiasDominique : The government first said yes, then banned the demonstration. They spoke of public order—whose order was supposedly being disturbed? Those who carry out executions in Iran? When a democracy condemns executions in Iran, we must not only condemn them but also… pic.twitter.com/2p0SaFtbp5
— Women's Committee NCRI (@womenncri) June 21, 2026
For we are not fooled. When a democracy forbids the denunciation of a theocratic regime’s hangings, we must call it what it is: fear, complacency, and the hand of the mullahs weighing, from a distance, on our own institutions.
We do not silence human rights defenders to protect the peace. We silence them so as not to displease tyrants.
The freedom to demonstrate is not a favor granted by the state on sunny days.
It is a right—a right guaranteed by our Constitution, by the European Convention on Human Rights, and by the Declaration of 1789, which proclaims that the free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the most precious rights of man.
To forbid is the exception; to authorize is the rule.
And when the exception becomes the instrument of diplomatic surrender, it is no longer law: it is cowardice dressed up as legality.
I am a lawyer. I defend Iranian women. I know their names, their faces, their cells.
I know what it means to be imprisoned, tortured for a slogan, and hanged for having dared to live free.
Those women did not lower their eyes before the Guardians of the Revolution.
And we, here, in the land of human rights—or rather, alas, as Robert Badinter so rightly pointed out, the land of the Declaration of the Rights of Man—would we lower our own eyes before a threat phoned in from an embassy?
Never!
— Dominique Attias (@AttiasDominique) June 20, 2026
For our silence would be their condemnation. Every demonstration banned in Paris is one more rope tightened in Tehran.
Every retreat by our leaders is one more smile on the faces of the torturers and the friends of the son of the Shah.
So, I say this with gravity and with anger: we will not ask for permission to defend human dignity.
We will continue to challenge this ban before every jurisdiction. We will take it, if necessary, all the way to Strasbourg.
And we will take to the streets, because a democracy that forbids defending the oppressed has nothing left to protect other than its own shame.
Long live the freedom to demonstrate! Long live Human Rights with a capital H!
And long live the women of Iran, we will not abandon you. Zan, Moqavemat, Azadi. Woman, Resistance, Freedom.
And long live these Iranian people who, through their courage, teach us the lesson that our leaders have forgotten.
Thank you.