Badri Khamenei

Badri Sadat Khamenei (Persian: بدری سادات خامنه‌ای; born 1942 or 1943) is an Iranian dissident and the sister of Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran. She is known for her opposition to her brother's rule in Iran.

In 1984, Badri Khamenei's husband, Sheik Ali Tehrani, an Iranian Shia Islamic theologian and writer, fled to Iraq, prompting her to depart Iran with her children in 1985. Her departure coincided with the Iran–Iraq War, and she joined her husband after a separation of approximately one year. During this period, she publicly acknowledged that 20 of her friends had been arrested and executed by the Iranian regime.

In 1995, she returned to Iran but maintained a distance from her brother, Ali Khamenei. She remained estranged from him until his death on February 28, 2026.

Her family includes her husband, Sheik Ali Tehrani, who was born in 1926 and died in 2022. Following her return to Iran, Tehrani spent ten years in prison. Their daughter, Farideh Moradkhani, is the niece of Iran's former Supreme Leader. Farideh was arrested in November 2022 after attending a prosecutor’s office in response to a summons. Her son, Mahmoud Moradkhani, resides in France and has shared videos criticizing the Iranian regime, aligning with his sister's dissent.

In December 2022, amid the Mahsa Amini protests, Badri Khamenei publicly criticized her brother's rule and described the regime as a "despotic caliphate." She authored an open letter expressing her desire to see the regime overthrown, stating that "The regime of the Islamic Republic of Khomeini and Ali Khamenei has brought nothing but suffering and oppression to Iran and Iranians."