February 18, 2022
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi’s 35-year-old niece has been arrested after she praised former Empress Farah.
Agents of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry arrested Farideh Moradkhani January 14, while some of her personal belongings were confiscated in a raid on her home, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), a U.S.-based news outlet.
The agency said January 16 that Moradkhani had been transferred to Tehran’s Evin prison.
“We are very worried, we did not have news…. We now know she is in Evin prison” and under the control of the Intelligence Ministry, her brother Mahmud Moradkhani, who lives in France, told the London-based Iran International satellite news channel.
Moradkhani is the daughter of Khamenehi’s sister. She is known in Iran for her activism against the death penalty and for civil freedoms.
Internet speculation focused on her arrest being prompted by a video posted on social media that showed her praising Farah Diba during an online event marking the former empress’s 83rd birthday. But that was last October.
Moradkhani said then, “We wanted to offer you a birthday present, but thought the best present would be our hearts to welcome you back to our country. Since your departure, the flowers of our nation have weathered, and our young generation has lived in despair.”
Moradkhani is the daughter of Badri Khamenehi and Sheikh Ali Tehrani, opponents of both the monarchy and the Islamic Republic.
Badri and Tehrani fled to Iraq in 1985, when their daughter was an infant and her uncle was Iran’s president. Badri told reporters at the time that she and her husband had “struggled against the Shah’s regime. All Iranian women who had struggled against the Shah’s regime are now against Khomeini…. I am disappointed with political struggle, so I have decided to abandon political activity,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
In a 1985 interview with the Sunday Times of London, Badri said, “Khomeini is spreading the word of God by force. They execute thousands in the name of Islam, but this is against our religion.”
Tehrani and Badri later returned to Iran and Tehrani was imprisoned for 10 years.
Mahmud Moradkhani said of his sister in his recent interview: “She wasn’t a political activist. There is no freedom to become a political activist in Iran in the first place. She was a human rights defender who participated in charity work and peaceful demonstrations.”
He added: “Of course, my uncle, Ali Khamenehi, is aware of our opposition to the regime since it was first established decades ago.”
And he said his family “would not be silenced.”