On September 16, 2022, Mahsa Amini († 22) died during an operation by the vice squad in the Iranian capital Tehran. The death of the young Kurd sparked worldwide protests.
In the beginning it was mainly women who rebelled against the compulsory headscarf, which meant Amini’s downfall, but now all walks of life are demanding the fall of the Iranian regime – and even the family of the powerful revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (83) is clearly against the Iranian rulers.
Cousin Khamenei: “We are not afraid”
“I am ashamed to say that he is my uncle,” said Khamenei’s cousin, Mahmoud Moradchani, 59, in an interview with Tamedia newspapers.
The family is “ready to give everything: our money, our time, even our lives” to overthrow Ali Khamenei, says the Iranian exile, who lives in Paris. “We’re not afraid,” he says. “Many in Iran are on the same page as our family: we have nothing left to lose.”
The Revolutionary Guard joins the protest
Moradchani’s mother, Badri Hosseini Khamenei, opposed the Iranian government last week. In a letter published by her son in Paris, Ali Khamenei’s sister criticizes her brother’s “despotic” leadership. She is harsh on the state leadership, accusing it of bringing “Iran and the Iranians nothing but suffering and oppression”.
“I hope to see soon the victory of the people and the overthrow of this tyranny that rules Iran,” she expressed her sentiments in the letter, which is dated “December 2022.” She turns to the Revolutionary Guards and calls on them to lay down their arms and join the protests.
Expert sees regime in ‘biggest crisis of all time’
Farideh Moradchani, 51, the niece of the Iranian religious leader, spoke in a video message from a prison in Tehran in November. In it, she described the government as a “murderous and infanticide regime”. She has made a name for herself in Iran as a staunch opponent of the death penalty and has been imprisoned several times. According to her brother, she will be in prison for at least three years.
According to expert Mahdi Rezaei-Tazik (39) from the University of Bern, it is a huge blow to the regime that family members are so clearly against Ali Khamenei. The Iranian government is in the midst of the greatest crisis of all time.