The hardline Islamic regime of Iran, under the leadership of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader is also caught in a scandal that is uncharacteristic of the Islamic Republic.
Controversy has hit the wedding of the daughter of Khamenei close aide, whereby the bride was caught in a strapless wedding outfit, with the critics labelling the regime to be hypocritical with its strict hijab directive.
Who is Ali Shamkhani?
The video under consideration is one of the 2024 wedding of the daughter of Ali Shamkhani. Shamkhani is among the oldest defence and national security advisors in Iran and a close ally of Khamenei who has promoted the application of strict Islamic regulations on women and girls and led violent crackdowns on the demonstrators.
New Hijab rule
In 2022, Shamkhani was the head of the national security council in Iran when a nationwide revolt rocked Iran, as women went to the streets and burned their headscarves in protest against the hijab law in the country.
The daughter of Ali Shamkhani one of the Islamic Republic’s top enforcers had a lavish wedding in a strapless dress. Meanwhile, women in Iran are beaten for showing their hair and young people can’t afford to marry. This video made millions of Iranian furious. Because they… https://t.co/MAb9hNgBnN pic.twitter.com/WoRgbpXQFA
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) October 19, 2025
In the old video circulating on social media, Iranian Expediency Council member, Admiral Shamkhani, is depicted as taking a stroll with his daughter down the aisle into a wedding hall at the posh Espinas Palace Hotel in Tehran.
The bride, Fatemeh, is observed to be in a low-cut, strapless dress, and a nearly transparent veil is barely covering her head.
The wife of Shamkhani is shown in an equally noticeable blue lace evening dress that was of a low cut, exposing the back and sides. She also does not have a headscarf. Other women in the video were also seen not wearing the hijab.
Do you really want to know how Iranian morality police killed Mahsa Amini 22 year old woman? Watch this video and do not allow anyone to normalize compulsory hijab and morality police.
The Handmaid’s Tale by @MargaretAtwood is not a fiction for us Iranian women. It’s a reality. pic.twitter.com/qRcY0KsnDk
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) September 16, 2022
Western-Style Wedding Triggers Public Backlash
Such luxuriency of the Western-style wedding and the dressing of the bride and her mother, which is weird in a nation where hijab is a mandatory habit and the rules of decency with centuries of preaching have been followed, have attracted the attention of people, with critics branding the Khamenei regime as being of two minds.
The daughter of one of the top enforcers of the Islamic Republic Ali Shamkhani, was lavishly married in a strapless dress. In the meantime, Iranian women are beaten up because they dared to show their hair and youngsters are unable to afford to get married, in a post on X by the Iranian activist, who was exiled.
She pointed out that the video caused millions of Iranians to be outraged by the fact that Khamenei regime is pushing the Islamic values by using bullets, batons and prisons on all except themselves.
Khamenei main advisor was attending the wedding of his daughter in a palace-like wedding ceremony.
“It is the same regime that murdered Mahsa Amini because of wearing a bit of her hair, which sends women to prison because they sing, which engages 80,000 morality police to pull girls into vans, and hosts a luxury party on its own. This is not hypocrisy that is the system. They teach about being modest and at the same time, their daughters wear designer gowns. The message was even more evident, the rules were not theirs, but yours,” she added.
Iranian journalist Amir Hossein Mosalla claimed on social media that the video demonstrated that the officials of the regime do not believe in their own laws that they advocate, they just wish to make the lives of people miserable.
Ellie Omidvari, an Iranian activist on women rights, remembered the hundreds of people murdered during the protests, who were newlyweds. In a palace their bride, beneath the ground ours, said she.
Even the Tasnim news agency which is related to the Revolutionary Guards deplored Shamkhani. It condemned the decision to publish a personal video as unethical, but said that the lifestyle of officials in the Islamic Republic must be justifiable.
How did Ali Shamkhani react to the leaked video?
Ali Shamkhani has denounced Israel for leaking a video of the April 2024 occasion. He was quoted by the Iran international saying that hacking into the privacy of people was the new way of assassination by Israel.
The publication has quoted former Iranian minister Ezzatollah Zarghami defending Shamkani who, he said, had kept his head low, that the ceremony was a female-only one.
