A few hundred people protesting against the repression and executions carried out by the authorities in Iran gathered in Paris on Saturday despite a ban on demonstrations, said the Paris police prefecture (PP), which reported 20 arrests.

The demonstrators converged late in the morning on Place Vauban, near Les Invalides, defying the decision of the PP, made the day before and confirmed by the administrative court on Saturday morning, to ban this gathering due in particular to a "serious risk" of "clashes" with Iranian monarchist activists or with people supporting the regime in power in Tehran.

Law enforcement quickly dispersed the protesters, notably using "pepper gas", according to Afchine Alavi, a member of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the political wing of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK), considered "terrorist" by Tehran, who was among the organizers.

"A dozen" people were injured, he told AFP.

"We had asked the protesters not to come and to wait for the result of the emergency appeal. But we cannot control everyone and buses have arrived from all over Europe," he said.

At midday, a few hundred people were confined by the CRS in a section of the Avenue de Breteuil, chanting slogans "Neither Shah nor Mullah!", "Down with the dictatorship in Iran!" or "French government shame on you!", waving yellow flags or brandishing portraits of Iranians executed by the authorities in Tehran, an AFP journalist observed.

The gathering ended peacefully in the mid-afternoon.

Among the protesters, Shokouleh Majd deplored France's "complicit policy" towards the Iranian authorities "to prevent this demonstration." "France has crushed all its values. It's not us, it's the mullahs who are terrorists, and it's us they're preventing from demonstrating to denounce the executions in Iran," she fumed.

This demonstration, initially scheduled for Saturday afternoon, was organized by the Voice of Iran collective, which includes associations of the Iranian diaspora and French and international NGOs. Among them are the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the Association of Iranian Women in France, and the Committee for the Support of Human Rights in Iran (CSDHI).

The organizers were hoping for 100,000 people to participate.

The Paris administrative court confirmed on Saturday morning the decision by the PP to ban the demonstration.

Denouncing a ban decreed "at the last moment", the lawyers for the organizers Vincent Brengarth and William Bourdon told AFP at midday that the Council of State, which they had appealed to, had rejected their request.

"The lack of a hearing before the Council of State, despite the infringement on the freedom to demonstrate and the very serious consequences of this ban, only serves to prolong a situation of arbitrariness," they denounced.

AFP