Hijab a tool for US, allies to pursue interventionist agenda against Iran: Journalist

By Maryam Qarehgozlou

The United States and its allies use the Hijab as a pretext to carry out their interventionist actions against Iran by provoking the Iranian youth against their government, says an American journalist.

Fiorella Isabel, an American journalist and geopolitical analyst presently based in Moscow, told the Press TV Website in an interview that the West attempts to focus on the Hijab to develop a narrative that the Islamic Republic is a “brutal dictatorship” led by “a terrorist regime.”

“This is going along with an interventionist foreign policy that the US has against Iran, with their ally, Israel, of course, they don’t want Iran to have nuclear weapons, yet they have nuclear weapons. They don’t want Iran to have its national sovereignty and decide for itself,” she stated.

Isabel was in Iran to attend the first edition of the International Khorsheed Media Festival which brought together 100 women journalists from more than 40 countries.

The RT International journalist said women in Iran are not oppressed, debunking the Western propaganda, and noted that the difference between Muslim and Western women is only “cultural.”

“In the West, we value appearance and sexuality as traits of femininity rather than what other countries value and this is something that’s just cultural and it doesn’t mean we should impose our own beliefs on other countries,” she said in a conversation with the Press TV website.

She slammed the Western media for presenting a distorted picture of the Islamic Republic of Iran and portraying Iranian women as oppressed and voiceless.

Isabel said during her brief stay in Iran, she visited the major cities of Tehran and Mashhad and noticed that not all women were wearing the exact same attire and no one faced any abuse for that.

 “In fact, in the United States, we value things differently. We express ourselves with the way we dress, but oftentimes when it comes to the economic development when it comes to education, we are actually being left behind and we are actually not uplifted in the way we should be,” she remarked.

“So what I saw in Iran was the reverse, women are uplifted. Women have a lot of decision-making power, and they have zero qualms about letting people know when they are upset. So, if the women of Iran were upset, I think they would let the world know themselves.”

Isabel explained how she has a newfound respect for women who choose to believe in Islam and who wear the Hijab because they want to.

“I’m not religious, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t appreciate this culture for what it is, and as a guest, I think it’s wise to respect a country’s laws,” she asserted, pointing to religious tolerance.

Isabel also criticized West’s “condescending” manner in telling sovereign countries how to run their affairs, while they disregard the brutality unleashed on people in Palestine and Yemen. 

“I’m against this condescending idea in the West that we need to tell people what’s better for them. And they are treating women the same way; they think they need to save these women,” she said.

“And it’s not the reality, because if we really wanted to save people, we would really focus on Yemenis, Palestinian people. And that’s just not a focus because it’s not advantageous to the political desires of the West at this moment.”

On the Khorsheed Media Festival, Isbael said she hasn’t seen a festival like that in the West.

“The festival showed us the intellect, the determination, and the talent of Iranian women that many of us have been told doesn’t exist because you wear a Hijab so that you are oppressed,” she said.

To present the real narrative of how women are actually treated in Iran, Isabel said Iranian journalists should have as many connections with Western people as they can.

“I still get censored, but not as much as you all do. I know the censorship is tough. It’s difficult in social media, but as you saw it has been a powerful tool that can be used to break barriers in spite of the censorship,” she emphasized.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk