Credit: Ali Sahib, Chronicle.lu
On the afternoon of Saturday 24 May 2025, the Iranian community in Luxembourg held a demonstration in the capital to denounce continued executions in Iran and to call for international action.
A group of Iranian residents in Luxembourg gathered in Place de Clairefontaine for a public protest and exhibition organised by the Association for Human Rights of Iranians and the Iranian Youth Association in Luxembourg. The event aimed to "raise awareness and denounce the accelerating wave of executions in Iran, calling on the Luxembourg government to take a firm stand and act against this ongoing injustice".
The exhibition featured portraits of the victims of the 2022-2023 protests in Iran, as well as political prisoners who were executed during both the Shah's and the Islamic Republic's rule. The visuals drew significant public attention, turning the event into "a poignant reminder of the human cost of repression and the urgency of international solidarity".
The event was one of several rallies held simultaneously in European cities such as London (UK), Frankfurt and Bonn (Germany), to protest the rise in executions in Iran and call for urgent international intervention. As reported by the Iranian Youth Association in Luxembourg, hundreds of members of the Iranian diaspora, supporting the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), participated in the demonstrations, highlighting a major human rights crisis in Iran.
Organisers in various cities said the Iranian community had mobilised to urge the European Union and its member states to take immediate action to put an end to executions, quash all death sentences against political prisoners and demand their immediate release. Demonstrators particularly expressed concern about the fate of political prisoners sentenced to death after the September 2022 uprising due to their alleged ties to the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), the main opposition movement in Iran.
The protesters reiterated that the world cannot remain indifferent. In a statement issued on Friday 23 May 2025, regarding the new record number of executions, Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the NCRI, said: "The continued increase in executions reveals the deep fear of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the clerical regime in the face of a popular uprising." However, she also emphasised that this "barbarity" serves to fuel "popular anger". Ms Rajavi called on all human rights organisations to act urgently to save the lives of prisoners sentenced to death.
Beyond the immediate call to end executions, Iranian communities also demanded that Western governments officially designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation. Participants emphasised that the appropriate policy toward Iran must be to support the Iranian people and their resistance movement in their quest for regime change. They emphasised that the international community must recognise the right of the Iranian people to resist "brutal oppression".
