A video of a press release by Farideh Moradkhani, an engineer whose late father was a distinguished opposition determine married to Khamenei’s sister, was being extensively shared on-line after what activist information company HRANA stated was her arrest on Nov. 23.
“O free folks, be with us and inform your governments to cease supporting this murderous and child-killing regime,” Moradkhani stated within the video. “This regime shouldn’t be loyal to any of its non secular rules and doesn’t know any guidelines besides drive and sustaining energy.”
Khamenei’s workplace didn’t instantly reply to a Reuters request for remark.
HRANA stated 450 protesters had been killed in additional than two months of nationwide unrest as of Nov. 26, together with 63 minors. It stated 60 members of the safety forces had been killed, and 18,173 protesters detained.
The protests, sparked by the dying of younger Kurdish Iranian girl Mahsa Amini after her arrest for “inappropriate apparel”, pose one of many strongest challenges to the nation’s clerical institution for the reason that 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Difficult the Islamic Republic’s legitimacy, protesters from all walks of life have burned photos of Khamenei and known as for the downfall of Iran’s Shi’ite Muslim theocracy.
The video was shared on YouTube on Friday by her brother, France-based Mahmoud Moradkhani, who presents himself as “an opponent of the Islamic Republic” on his Twitter account, after which by distinguished Iranian rights activists.
On Nov. 23, Mahmoud Moradkhani reported her sister’s arrest as she was heeding a court docket order to seem on the Tehran prosecutor’s workplace. Farideh had been arrested earlier this yr by Iran’s Intelligence Ministry and later launched on bail.
HRANA stated she was in Tehran’s Evin safety jail. Moradkhani, it stated, had earlier confronted a 15-year jail sentence on unspecified prices.
Her father, Ali Moradkhani Arangeh, was a Shi’ite cleric married to Khamenei’s sister and just lately handed away in Tehran following years of isolation resulting from his stance towards the Islamic Republic, based on his web site.
Farideh Moradkhani added in her video: “Now’s the time for all free and democratic nations to recall their representatives from Iran as a symbolic gesture and to expel the representatives of this brutal regime from their nations.”
On Thursday, the United Nations high human rights physique determined by a cushty margin to ascertain a brand new investigative mission to look into Tehran’s violent safety crackdown on the anti-government protests.
Criticism of the Islamic Republic by family members of high officers shouldn’t be unprecedented. In 2012, Faezeh Hashemi Rafsanjani, the daughter of late former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, was sentenced to jail for “anti-state propaganda”. (