Iran foreign minister cancels India visit after promo video shows women cutting hair

Iranian embassy asked organisers to delete the video sequence but the request was reportedly refused

Iran’s foreign minister reportedly cancelled a visit to India after a promotional video showed protesting Iranian women cutting their hair.

Hossein Amir-Abdollahian was scheduled to attend the Raisina Dialogue – a geopolitical conference scheduled for 3 and 4 March – but pulled out after seeing clips showing the protests juxtaposed with Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi.

The Raisina Dialogue is a premier geopolitical conference hosted by the think-tank Observer Research Foundation (ORF) in partnership with the Ministry of External Affairs.

It was reported that the promotional video of the Raisini Dialogue was put out a month ago. The video has less than a two-second shot of Iranian women cutting their hair in protests and that image was juxtaposed with the image of the Iranian president.

Quoting sources, IE reported that this angered the Iranian embassy that was preparing for the visit of the foreign minister.

The embassy requested ORF and India’s foreign ministry to delete the shot from the video. However, things got out of hand when ORF refused to fall in line, according to the report.

As a result, the Iranian government informed the organisers that Mr Amir-Abdollahian will not be able to travel for the Raisina Dialogue.

Every year, leaders in politics, business, media, and civil society converge in New Delhi to discuss the state of the world and explore opportunities for cooperation on a wide range of contemporary matters, according to the ORF.

It says the Raisina Dialogue is “structured as a multi-stakeholder, cross-sectoral discussion, involving heads of state, cabinet ministers and local government officials, who are joined by thought leaders from the private sector, media and academia”.

Iran has witnessed massive protests since September last year when 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in police custody. She was initially taken into custody for wearing what authorities called an “inappropriate” headscarf.

The Independent has reached out to ORF for a comment.

India is also hosting the G-20 foreign ministers’ meeting scheduled for 1 and 2 March. Some of them are scheduled to stay back for the Raisini Dialogue that takes place just a few days later.

In November last year, India abstained on a resolution adopted by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to set up a fact-finding mission into the human rights violations in Iran committed on protesters in the country by state authorities.