Everyone knows CNN’s popular International Correspondent, Christiane Amanpour. She’s been around a long time.
Amanpour is respected by world leaders and colleagues, as well as her worldwide fans.
The reporter unexpectedly was forced to cancel a scheduled interview with Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi, after the president demanded that she wear a headscarf for their interview, which she refused to do.
The President of Iran is used to people listening when he tells them to do something. Amanpour’s response was brave, but she was making a political statement.
Iranian law states that all women must wear a head covering in public. The law has been enforced in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and applies to all women in the country, even tourists and visitors.
“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 headscarf,” she said on CNN’s “New Day” program on Thursday.
The Chief International Anchor for CNN and the host of her own popular CNN International nightly program, “Amanpour,” was supposed to interview the Iranian president at the United Nations offices in New York City at the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.
Amanpour posted tweets explaining the events leading up to the cancellation of the interview. She explained that after weeks of planning by her and her crew, they were ready, but the Iranian president was late for the meeting. Forty minutes after the scheduled time, his aide came into the room and said President Raisi wanted Amanpour to wear a headscarf since it was the holy month of Muharram and Safar.
Although Amanpour had worn headscarves for interviews several times before, in countries such as Iran and Afghanistan, she said that she would not wear a headscarf in a country where it was not required by law.
The famous correspondent was acting in solidarity with women in Iran, who are protesting the death of a young woman who died at the hands of Iran’s morality police.
Amanpour is Iranian and grew up in Tehran, Iran. She declined the president’s demand, saying that she was in New York, and there was no law forcing her to wear a headscarf. She hoped that President Raisi got the message loud and clear.
Amanpour added that when the aide came in, she related that the interview would not happen unless Amanpour wore a headscarf and that it was a matter of respect. The aide also referred to the matter in Iran over the protests in the country.
The interview would have been President Raisi’s first interview in the US. Amanpour was going to ask him about the protests in Iran over the death of Mahsa Amini.
Amini, a young woman of only 22, died in the morality police’s custody after they took her in for wearing her hijab too loosely. She collapsed at the police station and later died in a hospital. The death of Amini triggered protests all over Iran, as women all over the country removed their state-mandated headscarves (hijabs) and openly burned them in protest.
Iranian authorities said that the young woman died of a heart attack, but her postmortem exam showed that she had severe head injuries.
Amini’s death has triggered anger that has been festering in the hearts of many Iranians over the regime’s restrictions on personal freedoms.
Iran’s largest Telecom operator shut down mobile internet access on Thursday to contain the spread of the protests.
Amanpour had also hoped to speak to the Iranian president about the nuclear deal with the US, and Iran’s support for Russia amid the Russia-Ukraine war.