A niece of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called on foreign governments to cut all ties with Tehran’s “murdering and child-killing” regime in a video posted online two days after being arrested.
The video of a statement by Farideh Moradkhani, a well-known rights activist, has been circulating on the Internet after her brother, Mahmoud Moradkhani, who lives in France, shared it on Friday. Mahmoud Moradkhani said his sister had been arrested on Wednesday after going to a prosecutor’s office following a summons.
In the video, Farideh Moradkhani condemned the “clear and obvious oppression” that Iranians have been subjected to and criticized the inaction of the international community.
“This regime is not loyal to any of its religious principles and knows no law or rule except force and the maintenance of its power by any means possible,” he said in the video. He complained that sanctions imposed against the regime for its crackdown were “laughable” and said Iranians had been left “alone” in their struggle for freedom. It was unclear when the video was recorded.
Screenshot of a video posted on YouTube in which Farideh Moradkhani criticized the Iranian regime. Photography: YouTube
Farideh Moradkhani is an engineer who comes from a branch of Ayatollah Khamenei’s family that has a history of opposing Iran’s clerical leadership and has previously been imprisoned in the country.
Iran has been rocked by more than 10 weeks of protests that have spread across the country following the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman arrested by the morality police for allegedly wearing the hijab inappropriately. Iranian authorities said their investigation showed she died of natural causes due to a pre-existing condition, but her family alleges she was beaten.
The protests against the clerical establishment have become a broad movement to challenge the theocracy that has ruled Iran since 1979.
Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi has been charged with several crimes and could face the death penalty. Photography: Toomaj Salehi
On Sunday, judicial authorities confirmed that Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi, 38, who had voiced his support for anti-regime protests, has been charged with “corruption in the land” and could face up to death.
A US rights group tweeted on Saturday that his trial had begun “without the lawyer of his choice”, and his family said his “life is at grave risk”.
Assadollah Jafari, judicial chief of the Central Province, said the trial had not yet started “but the indictment against Toomaj Salehi has been drawn up and sent back” to the Isfahan court, according to the government’s Mizan Online website judicial
Salehi is accused of “corruption in the land”, according to the judiciary, one of the most serious crimes in the Islamic republic.
He is also accused of spreading “lies on the Internet, propaganda against the state, having formed and managed illegal groups with the aim of disrupting security in cooperation with a hostile government” in Iran, and ‘incite people to violence.
The Iranian judiciary said more than 2,000 people have been charged since the protests began.
Salehi is among a number of prominent figures who have been detained.
Iranian authorities said Hossein Ronaghi, another high-profile detainee, has been released on bail in an act of government reconciliation following Iran’s World Cup victory in Wales.
Ronaghi, who has been a human rights defender, blogger and advocate for a free Iran for nearly a decade, was arrested on September 24 outside the Evin court at the start of the protests. He was temporarily released, his brother announced on Twitter. He has spent a total of six years in prison since 2009 and had recently suffered kidney problems in prison.
It was also reported, but not confirmed, that former Esteghlal club captain and a popular current player at the Khuzestan club, Voria Ghafouri, will be released. His arrest last week for allegedly insulting the national soccer team had sparked an outcry among his fellow soccer players. A Kurd, he has insisted that he is not a separatist, but he has sided with some of the protesters by meeting with victims.
Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, the head of the judiciary, had announced the amnesty in what may have been an attempt to capitalize on the mood of national excitement over the victory over Wales. In Tehran alone, 48 prisoners were to be released.
Moradkhani is the daughter of Khamenei’s sister Badri, who fell out with her family in the 1980s and fled to Iraq at the height of the war with neighboring Iran. She joined her husband, the dissident cleric Ali Tehrani who was born Ali Moradkhani Arangeh.
She has gained prominence as an activist against the death penalty and was last arrested in January this year. This arrest followed a video conference in October 2021 in which he lavishly praised Farah Diba, the widow of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi who was ousted by the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The Human Rights Activists News Agency said this weekend that 450 protesters had been killed in more than two months of unrest across the country, including 63 minors. He said 60 members of the security forces had been killed and 18,173 protesters arrested.
On Thursday, the United Nations’ top human rights body voted overwhelmingly to establish an investigation into human rights abuses in Iran during its violent security crackdown on anti-government protests.
Agence France-Presse and Reuters contributed to this report