Iran’s Exiled Queen Condoles Families Of Victims Of Recent Protests

Radiofarda – In a statement published on her Twitter account Iran’s former queen Farah Pahlavi expressed her sympathy with the families of the victims of the recent protests in Iran and said she is convinced that the sacrifices Iranians make to achieve freedom and democracy will bear fruits

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In her statement the 81-year-old widow of Mohammad-Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, said she shares the grief of the families “who are even deprived of saying goodbye to the dead bodies of their children”.

The Spokesman of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Ramezan Sharif on Monday said that “the enemy is trying to purify the plunderer Pahlavi regime in the minds of our youth” and claimed that the Islamic Republic has not succeeded in informing the 40 million Iranians who had not been born at the time of the 1979 Revolution of the “evilness of the former regime.”

Sharif’s statements and his admittance that the Pahlavi Dynasty is now popular at least with a large section of the Iranian society were unprecedented. Iranian authorities had never so candidly spoken of the popularity of the Pahlavi Dynasty before.

In the protests of December and January 2017-2018 and the recent protests which spread to more than 100 Iranian cities and towns some protesters chanted slogans in favor of the Pahlavi Dynasty and Reza Shah Pahlavi, its founder.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in his first reaction to the protests on November 17 took aim at the former royal family of Iran calling them “the sinister and malicious Pahlavi family” and accused them of inciting “riots” and supporting “thugs”.

Former Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi showed a strong reaction to Khamenei’s accusations on November 20 and said Khamenei’s accusations against protesters who took to the streets in protest to the threefold increase in the price of gasoline and its rationing was “cowardly.”