Iran Elite’s Children Living in West Amid Economic Crisis & Repression
Iran’s Elite Accused of Hypocrisy as Children Live Lavishly in the West
Members of Iran’s ruling elite are facing accusations of hypocrisy for allegedly using state wealth to fund the lifestyles of their adult children in Western countries while presiding over economic hardship and repression at home. The accusations come as tensions escalate with the United States, with Washington deploying a significant military presence in the Middle East and considering potential strikes.
Among those singled out for criticism is Ali Larijani, Iran’s top national security adviser. Despite being a vocal critic of Western values, Larijani has a daughter, Fatemeh Ardeshir Larijani, who resides in the United States. He also has two nephews living in Britain and Canada.
Larijani, a former parliament speaker and senior Revolutionary Guard member, is believed to have played a key role in the crackdown on opposition protests in January. He has reportedly been tasked by Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, with coordinating preparations for a potential war with the US.
The anger directed at the aghazadehs – the scions of the elite – is particularly acute following the violent suppression of protests, which some sources estimate resulted in tens of thousands of deaths.
“People are upset that the aghazadehs are getting dollar stipends to go to the west – the United States, Europe elsewhere – to study essentially on the state’s dime,” said Alex Vatanka, the Iran programme director at the Middle East Institute in Washington.
The US government has vowed to revoke the privileges of Iranian senior officials and their family members residing in the United States, according to a social media post from the State Department. However, the implementation of such measures remains unclear.
One Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander estimated that approximately 4,000 children and relatives of regime officials were living in Western countries as of 2024.
Kambiz Ghafouri, an Iranian writer and human-rights activist based in Helsinki, stated, “They made Iran a hell for Iranian citizens and sent their children to the west to live happily. If there was a referendum voting on whether people want children of the Iranian authorities sent back to Iran, I think more than 90% would say yes.”
Fatemeh Ardeshir Larijani was recently terminated from her position as an assistant professor at Emory University medical school in Atlanta following an online petition calling for her deportation.
Ali Larijani’s brother, Mohammad-Javad Larijani, an advisor to Khamenei and former head of the country’s human rights council, also has children living abroad. His son, Hadi, is a professor at Glasgow Caledonian University’s technology centre in the UK, while another son, Sina, is a director for the Royal Bank of Canada in Vancouver.
Maryam Fereydoun, the niece of former Iranian president Hassan Rouhani and daughter of his brother and aide, Hossein Fereydoun, works for Deutsche Bank in London, reportedly overseeing financial flows from the Middle East. Opposition groups have urged the bank to dismiss her.
Eissa Hashemi, son of Masoumeh Ebtekar – a former MP known as “screaming Mary” for her role in the 1979 US embassy hostage crisis – is an associate professor at the Chicago School in Los Angeles.
Habibollah Bitaraf, a former energy minister and another leader of the embassy siege, also has a daughter living in the United States.
Mahdi Zarif, the son of former Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, also resides in the US. A petition accuses him of living a luxurious life, including residing in a $16 million Manhattan home until 2021.
Elias Ghalibaf, the eldest son of Mohammad-Baqer Ghalibaf, a former IRGC commander and presidential candidate, lives in Australia and has also been the target of similar petitions.
Vatanka emphasized the hypocrisy at the heart of the matter. “You have an Islamist ruling order that for 47 years has been preaching all sorts of ways to behave, and we then see, one after another, children or grandchildren of the members of the elite living a very different life than the one their politically connected families back in Iran are preaching.”
Vatanka suggested that Western countries might be hesitant to deport the children of regime officials, potentially viewing them as valuable intelligence assets. “There’s always an intelligence value… Some of these connections might bring nuggets of information that can be useful. They become messengers.” He added that there has been no consistent policy on how to deal with the offspring of the Iranian elite, with the West generally avoiding what it perceives as collective punishment.