Tens of thousands of Iranians have been arrested since nationwide anti-regime protests broke out over two months ago. Now Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s own relative is one of them.
Farideh Moradkhani is the daughter of Supreme Leader Badri Khamenei’s sister, who fell out of favor with her brother and left Iran for Iraq in the 1980s, while the two countries were at war. Badri Khamenei was married to Ali Tehrani, a priest and opposition figure who died last month. The family’s opposition to the regime have cost and both the mother and the father were forced to flee to Iraq.
Farideh Moradkhani has long been critical of Iran’s religious rule and has been imprisoned before.
Arrested after video
Recently, she was arrested again after recording a video in which, among other things, she calls on the outside world to break all contacts with “this child-killing regime”.
Her brother, Mahmoud Moradkhani, has posted the video on Youtube. It is unclear where and when it was recorded. According to the brother, who lives in France, Farideh Moradkhani was arrested last week after being summoned to the prosecutor’s office.
More than 400 people are said to have been killed during the protests, among them more than 50 children, according to human rights organizations such as Oslo-based Iran Human Rights.