Exiled queen Farah Pahlavi in a message on the anniversary of the 1979 revolution has called the event a “sedition”, expressing hope that Iran can free itself from clerical rule.

Farah Pahlavi, who married Mohammad Reza Shah at the age of 21 in 1959, is 83 years old and lives in Paris. She has come to be seen by many Iranians as a respected elder who campaigned for women’s rights during the secular monarchy.

The exiled queen said in a statement on Wednesday that she is certain “light will defeat darkness,” an implicit reference to pre-Islamic Iranian beliefs in a struggle between good and evil and the eventual triumph of light against darkness.

She expressed hope that all Iranians “who have the love of this ancient fatherland in their hearts” will unite to achieve victory over “gloom and hardships.”

In recent years as economic crisis and heavy-handed policies by the Islamic Republic have worsened, many Iranians have come to praise the Pahlavi dynasty for modernizing the country in the 20th century. On the anniversary of the revolution, many on social media condemn the 1979 revolution as a misguided step.

Islamic Republic’s top officials, increasingly disenchanted by the sharp turn in public mood, have reacted in their speeches and in government-controlled media. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei this week condemned foreign-based Persian broadcasters for showing conditions in Iran before the revolution.