“The race to deport en masse pushes French officials to the limit of human rights violations,” Manon Fillonneau from Amnesty International told InfoMigrants.

Amnesty and La Cimade, both organizations defending migrant rights, believe officials from France's Savoie region put an Iranian dissident and her family in danger by contacting the Iranian embassy mid-June to obtain a consular pass.

The Iranian woman, who is in her thirties and remains anonymous, was given a deportation notice after being stopped by the border police at Chambéry airport on January 15. She was trying to get a flight to London with a falsified passport. She said she was targeted by threats in Iran, where the crackdown against protesters escalated in the past few months.

Since the arrest of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian woman who died while in custody with the country's morality police in mid-September, nearly 500 people have died in Iran and four protesters were hanged by Iranian authorities.

According to Mediapart, a French investigative media agency which interviewed the French lawyer and the partner of the Iranian woman arrested in Chambéry, the woman narrowly escaped police arrest after a protest where she said she was roughed up and her brother and sister locked up.

Arrested repeatedly with falsified documents

After fleeing her country in November, the woman first reached Italy and then France in December. However, she refused to seek asylum in France because she wanted to reach the UK, where her partner lives.

Until now, she tried four times to take a plane to London with falsified documents provided by smugglers, to no avail. Her partner told Mediapart he “already spent 10,000€ to help her reach Europe,” and underlined that it was “impossible for her to go through legal means, such as a humanitarian visa application, when she was actively wanted by police in Iran and had to leave the country in a hurry.”

Responding to a request for comments from InfoMigrants, the Savoie police confirmed that they reached out to the Iranian consulate, despite the woman’s situation.

“Asking for a consulary pass is the only way to verify the woman’s statements about her nationality and her identity, even if deportation is not a question.”

The authorities' actions endanger the woman’s relatives, says Amnesty. “Her name, photo, and fingerprints have potentially been communicated to Iranian authorities, which could lead to retaliation for family members still back home. The simple fact of seeking refuge in the EU now makes you a suspect to the Iranian regime, especially since the country’s leadership started accusing foreign governments of organizing the uprisings in Iran,” Fillonneau says.

Ban on deportation but not deportation notices

The Interior Ministry told InfoMigrants: "we do not deport anyone to Iran."

Savoie officials confirmed that policy. Nevertheless, the Savoie officials said that “while following the procedure, the Savoie administration contacted the Iranian consulate in Paris to prepare the deportation of this Iranian woman.” 

“Why would they deliver a deportation notice and contact the consulate when France cannot deport people?” Julie Aufaure, member of La Cimade, told InfoMigrants. Calling the situation “absurd,” the group calls for the French government to put an end to deportation notices for Iranians and to send out clear directives to officials across the country.

But for the Savoie official, “it’s normal to do these controls because we can have people saying they are Iranian to avoid deportation because it is known France does not deport people towards Iran.”

Released from detention

“These actions deprive migrants of their rights and freedoms,” Aufaure told InfoMigrants.

After her arrest at the Chambéry airport in mid-January, the Iranian woman was sent to a migrant detention center in Cornebarrieu, in Toulouse. She stayed there a few days until she was released following a judge's ruling.

To this day, migrant rights groups do not know of her whereabouts. Her case has also raised questions over the “absence of a legal and safe passage” to ask for asylum in the UK, says Amnesty.

According to Savoie officials, the French government has contacted the UK to allow the woman to reunite with her family.

But what about other Iranian migrants targeted by deportation notices? Rights associations and French media have counted at least four Iranians in a similar situation. Among them is a woman stopped on January 6 after trying to cross the Channel. She had been issued a one-year ban on returning to France and the Schengen area. Her case will be seen by the administrative court of Rouen in Normandy on February 15.