"They Can't Use Me as a Weapon": Bushra Shaikh | UK Column Interviews

Speaking with Patrick Henningsen in Mashhad during the six-day funeral procession for Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei, British journalist Bushra Shaikh describes the extraordinary reaction to her presence in Iran: attacks from The Telegraph, The Daily Mail, Iran, and international and prominent online figures, with some calling for her to be labelled a terrorist. She characterises the campaign as a witch hunt driven by a fringe of the online right, suggesting her critics are unsettled that a Muslim woman they once shared platforms with at GB News and TalkTV cannot be deployed as a political weapon.

Shaikh challenges Western coverage of Iranian women, saying she has moved freely without wearing hijab, and describes the role of women as prominent in Iran. On the funeral itself, she describes the crowds which even the likes of The Financial Times put at 13–15 million in Tehran alone, and a public mood of grief mixed with fury at the United States and Israel following the assassination of the Supreme Leader.

She reports that Iranians she has spoken to reject the MOU ceasefire framework outright, distrust Trump and Israel entirely, and demand serious negotiation rather than a cycle of broken ceasefires.

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