CNN
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Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi withdrew from a long-planned interview with CNN’s leader global anchor Christiane Amanpour on the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Wednesday, after she declined a last-minute call for to put on a head shawl.
Some 40 mins after the interview was once scheduled because of get started and with Raisi working past due, an aide informed Amanpour the president had instructed that she put on a head shawl. Amanpour stated that she “politely declined.”
Amanpour, who grew up within the Iranian capital Tehran and is a fluent Farsi speaker, stated that she wears a head shawl whilst reporting in Iran to conform to the native regulations and customs, “otherwise you couldn’t operate as a journalist.” But she stated that she would now not duvet her head to habits an interview with an Iranian respectable outdoor a rustic the place it isn’t required.
“Here in New York, or anywhere else outside of Iran, I have never been asked by any Iranian president – and I have interviewed every single one of them since 1995 – either inside or outside of Iran, never been asked to wear a head scarf,” she stated on CNN’s “New Day” program Thursday.
“I very politely declined on behalf of myself and CNN, and female journalists everywhere because it is not a requirement.”
Iranian regulation calls for all girls to put on a head overlaying and loose-fitting clothes in public. The rule has been enforced in Iran because the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and it’s mandatory for each girl within the nation – together with vacationers, visiting political figures and newshounds.
Amanpour stated that Raisi’s aide made transparent that the interview – which might had been the Iranian president’s first on American soil – would now not occur if she didn’t put on a head shawl. He referred to it as “a matter of respect,” given that it’s the holy months of Muharram and Safar, and referred to “the situation in Iran,” alluding to the protests sweeping the rustic, she added.
Anti-government protests erupted throughout Iran final week over the demise of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini whilst in custody, after having been arrested through Iran’s morality police on an accusation of violating the regulation on head scarves.
Thousands of other people have taken to streets, with some girls reducing their hair and burning their hijabs in protest a crime. Human rights teams have reported that a minimum of 8 other people had been killed within the demonstrations, which were met with a pointy crackdown through government, consistent with witnesses and movies shared on social media.
The demonstrations seem to be essentially the most large-scale presentations of defiance in opposition to the Islamic Republic’s rule, one that has change into extra stringent because the election of Raisi’s hard-line authorities final 12 months. After 8 years of Hassan Rouhani’s average management, Iran elected Raisi, an ultra-conservative judiciary leader whose perspectives are consistent with the pondering of the rustic’s tough clergy and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
In Iran, the top shawl is a potent image of a collection of private laws imposed through the rustic’s clerical leaders, which govern what other people can put on, watch and do. Over the previous decade, protests have flared as many Iranians have grown green with envy of the ones barriers.
Amini’s demise has fueled an outpouring of long-simmering anger over restrictions on non-public freedoms. Surveys and reviews lately have proven more and more Iranians don’t consider the hijab, or head shawl, must be obligatory.
Iranian officers have claimed Amini died after struggling a “heart attack” and falling right into a coma, however her circle of relatives have stated she had no pre-existing center situation, consistent with Emtedad information, an Iranian pro-reform media outlet. Skepticism over the officers’ account of her demise has additionally stoked the general public outcry.
CCTV photos launched through Iran’s state media confirmed Mahsa Amini collapsing at a “re-education” heart the place she was once taken through the morality police to obtain “guidance” on her apparel.
Amanpour had deliberate to probe Raisi at the Amini’s demise and the protests, in addition to the nuclear deal and Iran’s reinforce for Russia in Ukraine, however stated that she needed to stroll away.
“As protests continue in Iran and people are being killed, it would have been an important moment to speak with President Raisi,” she stated in a Twitter thread.
