'Bunch of bastards': Khamenei advisor responds in Hebrew to controversy over daughter's wedding

Ali Shamkhani, a senior adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, responded to his critics Monday in Hebrew in a post on X, after a controversy was sparked by the leak of a video from his daughter's wedding, held last year.

In the video, she appears without a veil and wearing a low-cut dress, in a country where women's clothing is strictly regulated and the compulsory hijab sparked an unprecedented wave of protest in 2022 — prompting outrage among many Iranians.

"Bunch of bastards, I am still alive," Shamkhani wrote on X in Hebrew, referencing a line from the 1973 film "Papillon," starring Dustin Hoffman and Steve McQueen, about a man’s escape from prison.

The Iranian official used the phrase to implicitly accuse Israel of being involved in the leak of his daughter’s wedding video, according to Iranian media.

Shamkhani had previously used the same phrase to address Israel after surviving an airstrike on his home in Tehran during last June’s war with Israel, Iranian reports add.

Initially reported dead, he reappeared at a ceremony a few days later.

The video of Shamkhani’s daughter’s wedding has been widely criticized by Iranians, both for the lavishness of the ceremony — while many Iranians struggle to make ends meet amid severe American sanctions — and for the revealing women’s outfits.

The official has been accused of promoting Khamenei’s hardline stances while living a different life in private.

On Monday, the reformist newspaper Shargh ran a front-page photo of Shamkhani with the headline "Buried under the scandal,” according to the New York Times.

Amir Hossein Mosalla, a journalist and editor-in-chief of a political publication in Iran, meanwhile, wrote on social media that the video showed “the regime’s own officials don’t believe in the laws they support; they just want to make people’s lives miserable.”

Women in Iran 'beaten for showing hair'

Outside Iran, regime opponents have also weighed in on the controversy, including exiled journalist and dissident Masih Alinejad.

While Shamkhani’s daughter enjoys a “lavish wedding in a strapless gown,” women in Iran “are beaten for showing their hair, while young people can’t afford to get married,” she said.

She argued that “millions of Iranians” were outraged by the images. “The message could not be clearer: The rules are for you, not for them,” she criticized.

In 2022, the death of young Iranian woman Mahsa Amini in the custody of the morality police, after being arrested for wearing her hijab too loosely, sparked mass protests across the country against the regime.

Authorities disbanded the morality police, but the crackdown on Iranian women continues nonetheless.

Iranian authorities, meanwhile, have sided with Shamkhani, insisting his behavior was "proper" during the wedding and denouncing interference in his private life and a "new form of assassination" by Israel.

The United States imposed sanctions on Shamkhani and his sons in 2020.

The family owns and operates a vast maritime empire, with tankers and fleets helping transfer oil from Iran and Russia to China.

His critics accuse him of profiting from sanctions that have crippled Iran's economy and caused hardship for the population.