In a public letter to the Iranian people, nine Iranian attorneys declared the ascension of Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic to power “illegal” and called for a referendum in Iran under the supervision of international organizations.

The letter which addresses the “Honorable nation of Iran,” states: “The Judiciary of every country is the clear reflection of the ruling regime of that country. As attorneys at law, we constantly witness the injustice afflicted upon our fellow countrymen by the puppet judges of the Islamic Republic regime, and we have done everything in our power to fight against this corruption.”

The letter criticizes judges who instead of swearing to “uphold and protect rights and justice,” swear to “actively strengthen the foundations of the Islamic Republic and support the leader and pay their dues to the Islamic Revolution as judges.”

“What has been inflicted upon our motherland and the children of Iran in the past 40 years is the retelling of the story of Zahhak (the Persian mythological tyrant) whose life depends on the blood and the brain of the youth so the mourning and troubled population cannot rise against him. Although attorneys are bound to respect the law, history has shown that sometimes breaking and discrediting bad laws are necessary in order to cause change; just as Nelson Mandela, Rosa Parks, John Louis, Gandhi, and many others did in the past,” the attorneys declared.

The letter continues: “The Islamic Republic Regime is void of any legal legitimacy, and its Judiciary which is only concerned with suppression and crackdown under the guise of protecting and restoring national security, is also illegitimate. We condemn all the arrests and prison and death sentences, especially the recent arrests of the signatories of the letters of 14 activists, including our honorable colleague Ms. Giti Pourfazel, for announcing their legal demand in a democratic and peaceful measure, and we demand the removal of these occupiers and robbers from our country.”

The letter also declares that the Islamic Republic’s constitution is illegitimate and an affront to the majority of the society, and continues: “The appointment of Mr. Khamenei, an incompetent person with no qualification to run the country, and all his appointments and amendment of article 110 of their own constitution and the entirety of the clerical supremacy regime and all its subsidiary organizations including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) are illegal.”

Mehrangiz Kar, one of the signatories of this letter, has announced that she has brought a lawsuit against the Islamic Republic, Khamenei, and the IRGC in US Federal Court for the “torture, hostage-taking, and the murder” of her husband by the regime.