Iran’s hijab enforcer, caught in a dress-code scandal: Leaked video raises questions over daughter’s wedding rituals

Critics argue that the video displays conspicuous wealth while many Iranians struggle economically; it undermines conservative Islamic values at a time when the regime enforces strict public morality; and it highlights an apparent double standard between officials’ private behaviour and the rules they impose on ordinary citizens.

Shargh, a reformist-leaning newspaper, ran a front-page photograph of Shamkhani under the headline “Buried Under Scandal.” As per a report by NYT, on the Clubhouse app, political commentators and a group of Iran–Iraq war veterans demanded he resign from his posts and issue a public apology. Journalist Amir Hossein Mosalla wrote on social media that the video exposed a regime whose officials “have no belief in their own laws… they only want to make people’s lives miserable.”

Shamkhani is a heavyweight in Iran’s power structure. He serves as the supreme leader’s representative to a new National Defense Council, and until July had spent a decade as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council. He is a former defence minister and ex-commander of both the navy and the Revolutionary Guards naval forces. The United States sanctioned Shamkhani in 2020; his family’s shipping interests have also drawn scrutiny as alleged channels for moving oil.

The controversy is politically combustible because Iran has a recent history of policing private behaviour: authorities have raided weddings and parties deemed un-Islamic and harshly suppressed the 2022 nationwide protests that erupted after the death of Mahsa Amini. During that unrest, in which hundreds were killed and women publicly burned headscarves, Shamkhani was among the officials credited with advocating forceful crackdowns. As per report by NYT, one lawmaker later quoted him as saying, “We will attack them until they return home.”

Shamkhani responded to the leak with a post on X, writing: “I’m still alive!” He reportedly repeated the remark when asked about the affair at a funeral. Tasnim, the Revolutionary Guards-linked news agency, called for officials’ lifestyles to be “defensible” while also denouncing the ethics of publishing a private video.

Some supporters insist Shamkhani is the target of a smear campaign by rivals and defend the wedding as a private, sex-segregated event. But analysts and activists say the episode exemplifies entrenched hypocrisy. As per report by NYT, Ellie Omidvari, an Iranian women’s rights campaigner, contrasted the lavish wedding with the protesters killed during the uprisings: “Their bride is in a palace, our bride is buried under the ground,” she said.