Exiled since he was 17 and sometimes described as the “crown prince”, Pahlavi has joined forces with high-profile young activists inside and outside Iran to forge an alliance. They are trying to draw up a charter based on a set of secular democratic principles, which a constituent assembly would use as the basis of a constitution to be put to a referendum. The charter was due to have been published at the end of February but was temporarily delayed to allow for the consultation of Kurdish groups. Pahlavi, who is on a European tour, has two key demands of the west: to help Iranians avoid the regime’s suppression of the internet, and to proscribe, rather than just impose sanctions on, the IRGC.
