The granddaughter of Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been arrested. On social media, she calls her uncle’s government a murderous regime that kills children.
Farideh Moradkhani comes from a part of Khamenei’s family that has long been critical of Iran’s clerical regime, and she herself has previously been arrested.
– Moradkhani joins opposition ranks in jail. Now 14,000 have been imprisoned, and it doesn’t look very bright for any of them, says Marianne Hafnor Bøe, a professor at the University of Stavanger and an expert on Iran.
– Iran has started issuing the death penalty for protesting against the regime. I don’t know if he will understand this, but being critical of the regime today is related to being enemies of God.
– Murderous regime
Farideh’s brother Mahmoud Moradkhani tweeted that she was arrested on Wednesday when she was called to the police.
On Saturday, he posted a video on YouTube in which his sister condemned “the obvious oppression Iranians are subjected to” and criticized the international community for its lukewarm reaction.
– Free people, stay with us. Ask your governments to stop supporting this murderous regime that kills children, she said.
– This regime is not faithful to its religious principles and knows no other method of government than the use of force to stay in power, he added.
Moradkhani urges the rest of the world to cut ties with the Iranian regime and compares his uncle to Hitler, Mussolini and Gaddafi, among others.
– Unparalleled brutality
In September he died Mahsa Amini (22), after collapsing in police custody three days earlier. She was arrested for “incorrect” use of the hijab.
The family and rights activists say Amini was fatally shot in the head by police, which officials deny.
A short time later it took people on the streets of Iran and all over the world, to demonstrate against totalitarian regimes.
– Many people have been arrested, but the number of people killed is also increasing. It is truly unprecedented brutality, says Iran expert Bøe.
The Human Rights Organization Amnesty International documented 160 killings in Iran under the auspices of government authorities from September 30 to November 10. 100 of those killed were Baloch.
The human rights group reports Nov. 22 Iran Human Rights whereas 416 people have been killed by security forces since the protests began, including 51 children and 27 women.
– We see that the regime is cracking down on protesters, especially where there are many ethnic minorities, such as Kurds and many Balochs, says Bøe.
– He turned away
Moradkhani is the daughter of Khamenei’s sister Badri who fell out with the family in the 1980s.
– She has stood out as an activist, especially as a human rights activist. You criticize the use of the death penalty and the treatment of dissidents in Iran.
His father, Ali Tehrani, is a Shia Muslim scholar and was part of the Islamic Republic before he too became a critic of its direction, says Bøe.
This is part of a bigger picture, he believes:
– Some of those who previously supported the Islamic Republic, Khomeini and the form of government he established in 1979, have turned their backs on the direction the republic has taken today, says Bøe.
– The resistance is not just about Islam or the Islamic Republic, but about the direction that the republic has taken, he continues.
The case continues below the video:
– They dare and they dare
The UN Human Rights Council has decided to launch an international investigation into the use of force against peaceful protesters in Iran, NTB wrote on Thursday.
Earlier this week, he described the head of the council, Volker Turk criticize the situation in Iran.
But it’s a bright spot:
– Is that the protests continue. The protesters don’t seem to stop for now, says Bøe and continues:
– It is amazing in many ways that they dare and dare, with the consequences that it has. The positive point is that the regime failed to stop the demonstrations.
