However, observers of the live broadcast — including a Wall Street Journal reporter in the country — said that there was no blurring of Mrs. Obama, and that the broadcast showed her shaking hands with King Salman.
The Saudi embassy in Washington didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. In a statement provided to Bloomberg View, the embassy’s information director said: “Saudi TV has been showing the total arrival ceremony at the airport and at the Palace and nowhere is anything blurred.
” Various clips posted of the ceremony elsewhere show no blurring of Mrs. Obama or of her handshake with the new king.
The Obamas made a stop in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Tuesday on their way back from India to pay respects to the late King Abdullah and to meet with the new leader of a longtime American ally. The visit came amid continued criticism of Saudi Arabia’s policies regarding women’s rights, which served to put the interactions between the first lady and Saudi officials under a spotlight.
Mrs. Obama dressed conservatively, with long pants and long sleeves. The first lady didn’t wear a headscarf in the conservative Muslim country — a standard part of Saudi Arabia’s state-mandated dress code. But covering the head isn’t required for foreigners, though only 3% of Saudis believe that a women without a headscarf is appropriately dressed in public, according to a 2014 study by the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research.
Her appearance drew notice on Twitter. Social media users tweeted using an Arabic hashtag that translates to #MichelleObama_NotVeiled.
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