As Iran erupted in violence over the loss of life of a younger girl within the custody of the “morality police,” CNN’s chief worldwide correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, had her personal run-in over a scarf with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.
Raisi abruptly pulled out of a long-planned interview in New York after Amanpour refused his last-minute demand to put on a scarf. “It was very unsettling,” Amanpour mentioned Thursday on CNN’s “New Day.”
The weird confrontation occurred as protesters battled police within the wake of the loss of life of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody. She had been arrested final week by Iranian “morality” police as a result of her scarf was allegedly too free to adjust to the nation’s strictly enforced Islamic clothes restrictions for girls.
Police claimed she died of coronary heart failure, however her household mentioned she was in excellent well being with no historical past of coronary heart issues.
Amanpour mentioned rigidity over such repression has been mounting in Iran, but it surely has grown more and more risky because the election of the present “hard-line” authorities, together with Raisi. Therapy of girls is “all the time the barometer” of Iranian authorities politics, Amanpour famous.
Amanpour, who grew up in Tehran, mentioned she has all the time worn a scarf working in Iran as a result of it’s the customized, “in any other case you simply couldn’t function as a journalist” there, she added.
“Right here in New York, or anyplace else outdoors of Iran, I’ve by no means been requested by any Iranian president — and I’ve interviewed each single one in every of them since 1995 — both inside or outdoors of Iran, by no means been requested to put on a scarf,” Amanpour mentioned
However Raisi was already 40 minutes late for the interview Wednesday night time on the United Nations headquarters in Manhattan when his aide abruptly advised Amanpour that the president “wanted” her to put on a scarf.
Raisi’s aide mentioned it was a “matter of respect,” referred to the present holy month in addition to “the scenario” in Iran, Amanpour mentioned.
It will have been Raisi’s first interview on American soil.
“I very politely declined on behalf of myself and CNN, and feminine journalists in every single place as a result of it isn’t a requirement, and it was lobbed at us on the final minute,” Amanpour mentioned.
“I believe that he didn’t wish to be seen with a feminine with no scarf on this second,” she added.
As of Friday, no less than 9 individuals have been killed amid clashes between Iranian safety forces and protesters livid about Amini’s loss of life, in keeping with The Related Press.
The scope of ongoing unrest, the worst in a number of years, stays unclear, however protests have erupted in no less than a dozen cities over the repression and mounting financial and social crises, AP famous.
Many Iranians, notably the younger, view Amini’s loss of life as a part of the Islamic Republic’s far too heavy-handed policing of dissent and the morality police’s more and more violent therapy of younger girls.