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It is not every day that a wedding dress causes this much controversy – unless, of course, it is worn by the daughter of the man who enforced Iran’s strict hijab laws.
Footage has been leaked from last year’s ceremony of the daughter of Ali Shamkhani, one of Ayatollah Khamenei’s closest allies, at Tehran’s lavish Espinas Palace Hotel.
It shows the bride in a fashionable low-cut, strapless gown as she walks down the isle, led by her father – at a time when millions of Iranian women face arrest for a stray lock of hair.
The video – showing the Western-style dress – was first shared on X over the weekend and it quickly went viral,
His wife is also wearing a similarly revealing blue lace gown with bare back and sides – and other women are not wearing the hijab.
What is seen in the video largely contrasts with the regime’s dress code for women, which is often enforced violently by its brutal morality police.
Shamkhani is also not just any politician in Iran; he is seen to be among the top echelon in the Islamic Republic.
His career spans 40 years at the pinnacle of the Islamic Republic’s security apparatus, from minister of defence under reformist president Mohammad Khatami to secretary of the Supreme National Security Council during the country’s most turbulent recent years.
The 70-year-old was in the position when the government killed more than 551 protesters who demanded more rights and freedoms for women after the death of Mahsa Jina Amini.
The 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman died in police custody after being arrested for allegedly violating rules requiring women to wear a headscarf.
Exiled activist Masih Alinejad said: ‘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 enforce “Islamic values” with, bullets , batons and prisons on everyone but themselves. The main advisor of Khamenei celebrating his daughter’s wedding in a palace-like venue.
‘The same regime that killed Mahsa Amini for showing a bit of her hair, jails women for singing, whose hired 80,000 “morality police” to drag girls into vans, throws itself a luxury party.’
Meanwhile, Alireza Akhondi, a Swedish MP of Iranian descent and a vocal critic of the regime, wrote: ‘The daughter of one of the most corrupt and repressive officials of the Islamic Republic is getting married in a lavish celebration, dressed freely.
‘She is free because her father has power. This is no longer religion. This is a display of hypocrisy, corruption, and fear. Fear of women who think and choose freely.’
On Monday, the reformist-leaning newspaper, Shargh, ran a front-page photograph of Shamkhani, titled ‘Buried Under Scandal.’
Amir Hossein Mosalla, editor of a political publication in Iran, said on X that the video showed that ‘the regime officials themselves have no belief in their own laws that they support, they only want to make people’s lives miserable.’
Although Iranians have debated the propriety of the wedding, others have pointed out that the video was leaked at an auspicious time and blamed Israel for it.
Addressing the leak on X, Shamkhani wrote in Hebrew, ‘bunch of bastards, I am still alive,’ appearing to accuse Israel of being behind it.
He had previously used the same phrase in June after surviving an Israeli airstrike on his home in Tehran.
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