ACTRESS PRIYANKA CHOPRA’S IRAN STAND ‘SELECTIVE OUTRAGE’: CRITICS

Wed 12 October 2022:

Top Indian actress and UN goodwill ambassador accused of ‘hypocrisy’ for speaking out on Iran while maintaining silence on issues back home.

Indian actress and United Nations goodwill ambassador Priyanka Chopra is facing criticism for her condemnation of the custodial death of Mahsa Amini in Iran while maintaining silence on women’s issues back home.

Last week, the 40-year-old Bollywood star, who is now based in the United States, posted her support for the protests in Muslim-majority Iran, saying she is in “awe” of the women fighting the government there for weeks.

“The voices that speak after ages of forced silence will rightfully burst like a volcano! And they will not and MUST not be stemmed,” she wrote on Instagram, where she has more than 82 million followers.

Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra and other Indian media personalities who are showing support for women in Iran have been called “hypocrites” for “staying silent” on the treatment of minorities in India ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/VXlcRHtOjE

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) October 11, 2022

Following the death of 22-year-old Amini after she had been detained for “improper hijab”, thousands of Iranian women hit the streets, denouncing the Iranian authorities, removing their hijabs and cutting their hair in solidarity. Dozens of protesters and security forces are reported to have been killed in nearly a month of protests.

“I am in awe of your courage and your purpose. It is not easy to risk your life, literally, to challenge the patriarchal establishment and fight for your rights. But, you are courageous women doing this every day regardless of the cost to yourselves,” Chopra wrote.

Critics, however, have accused Chopra – who was appointed a UNICEF goodwill ambassador in 2016 – of “selective outrage” and “double standards” by not speaking for India’s Muslim women, who have been facing attacks for wearing a hijab.

Nabiya Khan, a poet and activist based in the capital New Delhi, told Al Jazeera she expected an Indian celebrity to talk about the persecution of minorities in her home country.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Priyanka (@priyankachopra)

“They have the responsibility and voice to speak but they choose to look the other way. Indian celebrities are very quick to comment on anything happening outside the country – which is right, had they not been turning a blind eye to what is happening in India,” she said.

Khan said thousands of Muslim women in the southern state of Karnataka are unable to attend schools and colleges because of a ban on wearing the hijab in educational institutions by the Hindu right-wing government, which has “outlawed their faith”.

“Somehow it doesn’t catch the eye of Priyanka Chopra who is a so-called champion of women empowerment,” Khan told Al Jazeera.

“Such people not only look away from the harassment of minorities in their own country but also present India as a flourishing country where nothing needs to be corrected. This amounts to enabling harassment of the minorities in India.”

In recent weeks, a number of prominent women in the West have cut off locks of their hair to express their solidarity with the Iran protests. A news presenter working for the India Today network did the same during her show over the weekend.

Muslim activists in India were not amused at the act by a news channel that has been accused of spreading hate against Muslims and being in the government’s thrall.