Pot, Meet Kettle: Tehran Trolls France Following Crackdown on Paris Protesters

The French capital was engulfed in violence Saturday as police clashed with protesters demanding justice for three people fatally shot at a local Kurdish cultural center a day earlier. Police cracked down hard, using tear gas, truncheons, and riot gear, with demonstrators overturning cars, throwing rocks, and smashing shop windows.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry’s official spokesman and the chief of the country’s High Council for Human Rights have reacted to French authorities’ crackdown against pro-Kurdish protesters in Paris, pointing to French hypocrisy in criticizing Tehran’s response to violent riots while engaging in similar or even more brutal tactics at home.

“Certain regimes that level false accusations against Iran have themselves committed and continue to commit them against their own nations and people in the most outrageous manner,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani wrote in a tweet on Tuesday.

Accusing Iran’s Western critics of being nothing but “fake claimants to human rights,” Kanaani asked how much longer such hypocrisy could continue.

Saturday’s peaceful demonstrations turned violent after police began firing tear gas into the gathered crowds, with some protesters waving flags of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which France deems a terrorist organization.

The suspected gunman in Friday’s shooting in Paris is a 69-year-old who police say had been recently freed from detention awaiting trial for a sword attack on a Paris migrant camp last year.

Kazem Gharibabadi, the Iranian Judiciary’s deputy chief for international affairs, and secretary general of the country’s High Council for Human Rights, echoed Kanaani’s sentiments on French authorities' response to the protests.

“France’s heavy-handed crackdown on peaceful protesters proves the extent of its disregard for human rights. The French government violently silences the voice of dissent. Double standards vis-à-vis human rights have taken a new turn or what?” Gharibabadi wrote in a sarcasm-laden tweet, accompanied by footage of the aftermath of Saturday’s violence.

France's heavy-handed crackdown on peaceful protesters proves the extent of its disregard for human rights. The French govt. violently silences the voice of dissent. Double standards vis-à-vis human rights have taken a new turn or what? pic.twitter.com/EQd9y3BC9W

— Gharibabadi (@Gharibabadi) December 26, 2022

The heavy-handed reaction by French police to Saturday’s demonstration comes after months of intense criticism of Iran by Paris and its European and US allies over Tehran’s response to the Mahsa Amini protests, which began in September and have included crackdowns in those instances where protests turn violent and result in the death or severe injury of Iranian police and security personnel.

The tweets by Iranian officials exemplify the disconnect often noticed between how Western countries put down dissent at home and their reaction to similar dissent when it affects another country – particularly if it’s an adversary. Police in France in particular are known not to shy away from using extreme measures to clamp down on demonstrations, whether they are peaceful protesters or rioters. Police have been known to use high-powered water cannons, even in frigid temperatures, and to fire rubber bullets at the faces of Yellow Vests protesters that have dogged President Emmanuel Macron for much of his tenure in office. Scores have been partially blinded by the rubber projectiles, and at least a dozen people died at the height of the Yellow Vests' clashes with police between late 2018 and early 2019 alone.