September 23, 2022
An interview between CNN’s Chief International Anchor Christiane Amanpour and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in New York was abruptly canceled because Amanpour declined to wear a headscarf, she recounted on Twitter.
Iran’s state news agency did not elaborate on the reason for the sudden cancelation, but blamed Amanpour “because of refusing protocol.” It did not explain what protocol it was referring to and never mentioned a headscarf issue.
After her team waited 40 minutes for Raisi to arrive, an aide of his approached her. “The president, he said, was suggesting I wear a headscarf, because it’s the holy months of Muharram and Safar,” Amanpour said.
“I politely declined. We are in New York, where there is no law or tradition regarding headscarves,” Amanpour added. “I pointed out that no previous Iranian president has required this when I have interviewed them outside Iran.”
For example, she conducted several interviews with President Hassan Rouhani in the US, and did not wear a headscarf any of those times. She wore a headscarf when interviewing officials in Iran, adhering to the European edict, “When in Rome do as the Romans do.”.
This time, the presidential aide made it clear the headscarf was a mandatory condition for the interview, describing it as a “matter of respect,” according to Amanpour. It’s a condition that Amanpour called “unprecedented and unexpected.”
Amanpour said, “I think that he did not want to be seen with a female without a headscarf at this moment, either because it is a religious month or because people would say, ‘How come he is sitting down with a foreign journalist who is not wearing a headscarf yet inside Iran they are cracking down on young women who are not wearing their headscarves?’”
Amanpour’s father is Iranian and mother British. She spent part of her childhood in Tehran, the rest in England and moved to the United States for college.