In an interview with FRANCE 24, Iranian women's rights activist and journalist Masih Alinejad said Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei "is scared of" US President Donald Trump and called for the Iranian leader's targeted killing. "Kill Ali Khamenei the way that you kill[ed] Qassem Soleimani," she said, referring to the US assassination of the top Iranian commander in 2020 during Trump's first term in office.
Iran has just seen several weeks of protests, to which authorities responded with an "unprecedented massacre," according to Amnesty International. Activists say several thousands of people have been killed, although the exact death toll could be much higher.
"I strongly believe that people are still angry and the next wave (of protests) will be much heavier" given the brutality of the crackdown, Alinejad said.
Read more‘I saw 12 people collapsed in a pool of blood’: Eyewitness describes Iran’s deadly crackdown
Speaking from New York, Alinejad appealed directly to Trump: "You have promised Iranians several times that if the regime start killing them, then you will protect Iranians. The time has come." She cited the regime's suspension of 800 executions as proof that it fears Trump, urging him to unite G7 leaders to take action.
On January 13, Trump urged Iranians to keep protesting, saying "help is on the way."
Watch moreIranian women on the frontline of protests
Alinejad recalled meeting French President Emmanuel Macron back in 2022, when she urged him to shut down Iran's embassy in France. "When their language towards their own people is guns and bullets, they should not enjoy the privilege of diplomacy on your own soil," she told him.
Macron replied that "France is all about diplomacy", Alinejad recalled. To which she responded: "You're wrong, Mr. President. France is also about revolution. The French Revolution inspired millions of Iranians."
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