Badri Hosseini Khamenei, the estranged sister of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has criticized her brother and his "despotic caliphate" in an open letter in which she also says she hopes to see him overthrown.
Badri Khamenei’s letter, published on her son's Twitter account on December 6, expressed sympathy to the mothers who lost their loved ones because of their opposition to the Islamic republic in the last four decades and declared that she opposes the actions of her brother.
Badri Hosseini Khamenei
“The regime of the Islamic Republic of Khomeini and Ali Khamenei has brought nothing but suffering and oppression to Iran and Iranians,” she added, referring to Ayatollah Khomeini, who served as the first supreme leader of Iran from 1979 until his death in 1989. “I hope to see the victory of the people and the overthrow of this tyranny ruling Iran soon.”
Khamenei's sister, who lives in Iran, wrote that her brother “does not listen to the voice of the people of Iran and wrongly considers the voice of his mercenaries and money-grubbers to be the voice of the Iranian people."
In recent years, as a humanitarian duty, she said she has tried to raise the voice of the Iranian people to her brother's ears but was disappointed and cut off contact with him.
Badri Khamenei also used the letter to address the violent arrest of her daughter, saying that if her daughter is arrested in this way, “it is clear that they will inflict thousands of times more violence on the oppressed sons and daughters of others."
Badri Khamenei’s daughter, Farideh Moradkhani, who is the supreme leader’s niece, was arrested a week ago after being summoned to Tehran's Islamic Revolutionary Prosecutor's Office. In the last video she recorded before her arrest, she called on the international community to cut ties with the Iranian government.
Anger over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in September has prompted thousands of Iranians to take to the streets nationwide to demand more freedoms and women's rights.
Amini died while in police custody after being detained for allegedly improperly wearing a hijab. Her parents and friends say she was beaten. The widespread unrest represents the biggest threat to the Islamic government since the 1979 revolution.
The activist HRANA news agency said that, as of November 29, at least 459 protesters had been killed during the unrest. The figure includes 64 minors.