News: Iranians want Leila Hatami flogged & sentenced for pecking a stranger @ #Cannes2014

Leila Hatami, the first Iranian woman to sit on the jury of the Cannes film festival, is long practiced in the art of appearing on the international stage without offending hardliners in her home country.
She has never appeared in public without some form of head covering, be it a hat or elegantly arranged headscarf, and has even walked the red carpet of major festivals wearing a simple shaw or manteau-like dress. In Cannes this week she observed the Islamic Republic’s dress code as well, her sleeves reaching her wrists, her collar high, and a shawl over her hair arranged like a hat.
Despite her modest appearance, intended to preserve her ability to act and work freely in Iran, photographs of her greeting the octogenarian festival director Gilles Jacob have sent Iranian conservative politics into a tailspin. Hardline media have roared their disapproval and prominent conservative politicians have joined in.
A few days later, a group of female Iranian students wrote to Tehran’s minister of culture and media, Al Jannati. “We ask actress Leila Hatami be sentenced to one to ten years imprisonment and flogging,” the petition read. “We refer you to article 638 of Islamic Penal Code, which deems punishment for those who commit a sin in public. Leila Hatami, who is a beloved public personality in our Islamic nation, did not observe the proper Islamic attire and intentionally, and with full knowledge of her actions, volunteered to kiss a foreign non-Muslim man.” The group signed the petition the “Student Sisters of Hezbollah.”
“Leila Hatami kisses a strange man” ran the caption that many hardline media outlets used to accompany the pictures. The hardline newspaper Kayhan accused Hatami of mocking her country’s culture and used the occasion to recycle the old news about Asghar Farhadi, the director of the Oscar-winning A Separation, shaking hands with Angelina Jolie.

Perhaps Gilles Jacob did not anticipate the world of trouble he would create for Leila Hatami when he brought his face forward, but it’s clear she did. A video from the opening ceremonies of the festival shows Hatami’s discomfort clearly. She is standing on the red carpet next to other jury members when Jacob enters and proceeds to greet each one in the European manner. Each jury member steps forward, embrace Jacob and kisses him on the cheek. Hatami is standing behind the others and when it is her turn she extends her hand but Jacob puts his hand on her shoulder and lowers his head toward hers.
Hatami hesitates briefly and then does the same, like many Iranian actors and directors who have faced such moments in the past, choosing civility over professional expedience. The isolation and uncertainty is clear in her eyes, and the conflict she faces displayed in her expression. A woman recognized by the world of film, presiding as judge at Cannes, is still forced to fear the Islamic fundamentalists back home.