Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s Niece Arrested

Farideh Moradkhani, a civil activist and family advocate for victims of anti-regime protests, has been arrested by Iranian Secret Services, the niece of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

In an interview with Iran International, her brother, political dissident Mahmoud Moradkhani, who lives in exile in France, said that his sister was on her way home, but before arriving she was arrested and the family didn’t know about it until a while later; her house was searched and her personal belongings confiscated.

Moradkhani added in the interview: “Farideh was not a political activist; because there is no freedom in Iran to engage in political activities, but she was defending human rights and the families of protest victims, doing charity work, and participating in peaceful protests”, he described the Iranian regime as knowing only the language of repression and imprisonment, and that this would not prevent his family from opposing the regime. His father, Ayatollah Ali Moradkhani Tehrani, also opposed the regime, before Ali Khamenei became the regime’s guide”.

He continued: “Of course, Ali Khamenei is my uncle, and he knows very well our opposition to the regime since its establishment more than four decades ago, stressing that the regime will not be able to silence him and his family, as he tried and failed to silence his father”.

Father Ali Moradkhani Aranjeh, known as Sheik Ali Tehrani, a Shiite cleric, writer, and Iranian preacher, was married to Ali Khamenei’s sister. He supported the revolution, then defected and opposed the regime, before defecting like Khorasan Province in the Assembly of Experts on the Constitution, and one of the students of the founder of the regime, Mustafa Khomeini. He had opposed the Shah’s regime, and was imprisoned and exiled many times.

After the revolution he opposed the regime. He spent months in prison in the city of Mechhed. After his release from prison in April 1984, he secretly fled to Iraq, where he worked for several years on the Iraqi Persian-speaking radio and television in Baghdad. He participated in propaganda programs against the Iranian regime, but he returned to Iran in 1995. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison. In 2000, it announced that he had committed suicide in prison, but his family denied the news of his suicide. His son, Mahmoud Moradkhani, confirmed that his father had died under torture.