A recent visit by an American porn perfomer to Iran has sparked controversy, both in the US and Iran. Whitney Wright, 32, posted several pictures from her Iran visit on her official Instagram account on Tuesday. She was seen wearing hijab and clothes covered from head to toe, a stark contrast to other pictures on her Instagram handle.
Wright said she visited Iran last week and returned to Oklahoma, US on Monday.
She visited the former US embassy in Tehran, which was abandoned after the 1979 hostage crisis. Wright also clicked several pictures there, which is now turned into a museum by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
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Her trip to Iran came at a time when the US forces and Iranian proxies are firing barrage of rockets at each other, amid the Israel-Gaza conflict.
Wright, known for her support of Palestine, posted images with captions expressing her fascination with Iranian culture and food.
The controversy began when she shared an IG story of herself at Tehran’s Golestan Palace, fully covered in hijab, which is mandatory in Iran.
A post shared by Whitney Wright (@whitneywrightxo)
In one of her stories, she wrote, “If you respect the law, you will be safe in Iran”.
The law she was talking about is the mandatory wearing of hijab or headscarf in the country.
In 2022 and early 2023, Iran saw watershed protests and unrest, some of the biggest since the 1979 revolution, triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini over the headscarf law.
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Amini, 22, died in the custody of Iran’s morality police after being detained for not wearing hijab, which forced the country’s women to stand in solidarity with their right to wear anything.
Opposing Wright’s views on Iran’s mandatory hijab dress code, Masih Alinejad, an Iranian journalist and activist wrote, “Iranian women don’t want to obey a discriminatory law”.
“Rosa Parks stood up against racist laws in America and became a symbol of resistance. We the women of Iran want to be like Rosa Parks and not Whitney Wright.”
American porn star Whitney Wright is in Iran, my birth country, where women are killed for simply showing their hair and being true to themselves.
Whitney has published several photos on herself completely covered up on Instagram. On her post she called me a warmonger and tells… pic.twitter.com/MwBBsVorBJ — Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) February 4, 2024
Wright filmed her entire trip and some sections of the country took to social media to question the Iranian regime’s take on morality and rules.
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Actor Setareh Pesiani referred wrote on Instagram, “You punish people of this country in various methods for removal of hijab but you allow a porn actress to come here to tour Iran!?”
Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Nasser Kanani said he had no information about Wright’s “immoral and obscene work”, and she visited the country on her own, after obtaining a visa.
“Whitney Wright was not invited to Iran by any organisation, travelled to Iran personally and after obtaining a visa”, the semi-official Tasnim news website cited an unnamed “informed” source as saying on Monday.
(With inputs from agencies)