In France for more than thirty years, the doctor Mahmoud Moradkhani supports the uprising of the Iranian people, like his mother and his sister who remained in Iran.
Does he live in France cloistered in fear? One of the nephews of Ayatollah Khamenei who has taken refuge in France for more than thirty years, the doctor Mahmoud Moradkhani, confided in the newspaper The Express. The one who is ENT near Lille is not stingy with harsh criticism of his uncle’s regime, faced with an unprecedented challenge since September.
“Fear has fallen, there is no longer that respect for the mullahs which, unfortunately, has existed for too long in Iran. AliKhamenei cannot take a step back or all his power crumbles. This terrible repression can interrupt the demonstrations, but only momentarily: the Iranian people will not stop there and this regime must disappear“.
Mahmoud Moradkhani does not mince his words, including when he speaks directly of his uncle, whom he does not hesitate to compare to the worst. “By dint of lies, the liar locks himself in his own story, blows the doctor. Adolf Hitler followed the same path. Nicolae Ceausescu (former communist president of Romania editor’s note) was convinced, until the last minute, of being the father of the people…»
Departure after the revolution
However, the doctor has fond memories of his uncle in his childhood. “He was kind, very sociable, was interested in poetry and music. I remember I was lighting his pipe. He was my favorite uncle… It always gets me in trouble when I say that, but it’s not political: before the revolution, he was someone like everyone else!“.
From now on, Mahmoud Moradkhani regularly denounces the ayatollah who represses protest in Iran in blood – the repression has so far killed more than 480 people. He fled Iran for Pakistan in 1985, before joining France to take the medical exams – something impossible for him in Iran, except to pledge allegiance to the regime. His father, Sheikh Ali Tehrani, had preceded him by fleeing to Iraq, himself a Shiite religious leader, who disagreed with the formation of a mullahs’ regime after the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
“My father was a member of the assembly of the Elders to establish the Constitution, he refused to sign it and to entrust political power to the religious, Mahmoud Moradkhani tells The Express. He was a student of Khomeini [le premier guide de la Révolution]who loved him dearly, which allowed him to be spared when he was one of the first to oppose him“. Physically weakened, Ali Tehrani returned to Iran in 1995 and gave himself up to the authorities. Sentenced to 20 years in prison, he spentmore than seven years in various prisons“, according to his memoirs. He died last October.
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“Murderer and child killer”
Mahmoud Moradkhani’s mother, meanwhile, is believed to have remained in Iran. Sister of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, she denounced the “despotismof the plan at the beginning of December. “I object to my brother’s actions“, she wrote in a letter made public by her son. The Supreme Leader also has three brothers.
“I express my sympathy to the mothers who mourn the crimes committed by the regime of the Islamic Republic from the time of (its founder Ayatollah Ruhollah) Khomeini until the current period of the despotic caliphate of Ali Khameneishe continued, calling on the powerful body of the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological army of the Islamic Republic, tojoin the people before it’s too late“.
The break with the regime is widely shared by the family, since Mahmoud Moradkhani’s sister, Farideh, also militates alongside the demonstrators by denouncing a regime “murderer and child killer“. She was imprisoned several times, without having to fear for her life, like her mother.
“Our family is a little special, the regime grants us a little immunity, so I take advantage of itjokes the refugee doctor in France. “Many Iranians wonder why I haven’t been killed yet, but that’s okay: as long as I’m not dead, I live and I protest“.