French actresses cut their hair in solidarity with Iranian women
"Ebrahim Raisi Isn’t Who You Think He Is [...]In late May, the 12-member Guardian Council—Iran’s election watchdog, many of whose members are associated with Raisi—barred prominent moderate and pro-reform figures from running in the race. Some still clung to the hope that Khamenei would eventually intervene, just as he had done in 2005, to reinstate some of the disqualified candidates. Khamenei eventually called .. https://tinyurl.com/5754e3c6 .. on the Guardian Council to “make amends” for its “unjust” conduct, but without demanding any specific candidate to be reinstated; the Guardian Council’s response .. https://tinyurl.com/4sneb9w3 .. to this plea was a platitudinal statement devoid of any real substance. [...]This posture of fealty is what has been most consistent in Raisi’s four-decade career. He is a man driven first and foremost by a profound devotion to the acquisition of power rather a fanatical adherence to ideology. Whatever the political times demand—and from whichever direction those demands emanate—he is ready to respond. Thirty years later after his participation in the Death Committee, when his goal as judiciary was to appeal to the public rather than his revolutionary superiors ahead of running for president, he styled himself as a penal reformer by bringing down the severity of punishments, driving up the number of clemencies .. https://tinyurl.com/3wa836t5 , and turning public hangings into a rarity .. https://www.ft.com/content/a83e730b-ba8e-4d84-8aa2-3acbe7d82dac ." ...Am thinking in there should be a "than", so it would read, ...a profound devotion to the acquisition of power rather [than] a fanatical adherence to ideology. ... maybe. Like Trump.
By Adela Suliman October 6, 2022 at 12:23 p.m. EDT
An Iranian woman makes a victory sign over a pile of hair cut by women during a protest in Istanbul on Oct. 2, following the death of Mahsa Amini last month in Iran. (Sedat Suna/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
LONDON — A host of French actresses, among them Oscar award-winning Juliette Binoche and Marion Cotillard, as well as human rights activists and a European lawmaker, have been cutting locks of their hair in solidarity with protesters in Iran.
The action comes after the high-profile death of Mahsa Amini .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/25/iran-protests-mahsa-amini/?itid=lk_inline_manual_4 , a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, who fell into a coma and died on Sept. 16 after being detained in Tehran by the country’s “morality police,” amid allegations by her family that she had been beaten. She had been arrested for not properly wearing a headscarf or hijab — a mandatory hair covering for Iranian women.
Her death has sparked a wave of outrage across the Middle Eastern country as protesters across all of Iran’s 31 provinces have taken to streets. Many protesters set their headscarves alight or hacked off their hair, and called for the downfall of the Iranian regime.
The protests are the largest since demonstrations three years ago, which were met with a deadly crackdown, killing hundreds.
One widely shared video features a montage of French actors cutting their hair, interspersed with information about Amini’s case and overlaid with a mournful rendition of the historic Italian protest anthem “Bella Ciao.”
Binoche is seen wearing black and staring directly into the camera. The star from “The English Patient” and “Chocolat” hacks off a chunk of her hair with scissors, before leaning in to proclaim: “For freedom.”
She is followed in the video by Cotillard, known for depicting French singer Edith Piaf [Love her, see reply] in the 2007 movie “La Vie en Rose,” who also wrote on Instagram: “For the courageous women and men of Iran who are changing the world at this very moment, fighting for freedom. We stand by you.”
A woman cuts her hair in Istanbul on Oct. 2 during a protest the death of Mahsa Amini in Iran. (Emrah Gurel/AP)
British-Iranian academic and artist Katayoun Shahandeh argued that both matters were about “the control of women’s bodies and rights to choose how to dress and present themselves.”
“In Iran it is welcome but I do see the irony,” she told The Washington Post on Thursday, although she added that the video will likely be supported by protesters there. “Iranian women have asked for those outside to be their voice, to further attention … after years of people turning a blind eye.”
Sara Silvestri, a professor of European politics and religion at London’s City University, told The Post in an email that the “solidarity will probably give a further incentive to the demonstrators but won’t have a direct effect on the behaviour of the regime.”
“The Iranian authorities have been suspicious of Western countries’ intentions and discourse for decades,” she added.
Others who have expressed support for the protesters include Iraqi-born Swedish lawmaker Abir Al Sahlani, who sent shock waves around the European Union’s Parliament in Strasbourg, France, when she began cutting her hair while delivering a speech at a debate about the protests. She later tweeted .. https://twitter.com/AbirAlsahlani/status/1577368822939623426 .. that she had done it so women in Iran know that their voice is heard “all the way here.”
Swedish lawmaker Abir Al Sahlani cuts her hair as she delivers a speech during an E.U. debate on Iran's protests at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, on Oct. 4. (European Union/Via Reuters)
In Italy, the MAXXI museum .. https://www.maxxi.art/en/chi-siamo/ .. in Rome has an ongoing “solidarity campaign” allowing people to cut their hair at the museum and place it in a box, a spokeswoman told The Post on Thursday. It will eventually be delivered to the Iranian embassy in Italy “as a symbolic gesture to protest the violence occurring in the country.”
The United Nations has condemned .. https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/09/1128111 .. Amini’s death and crackdown on protesters, while the United States has also voiced its concerns.
“Mahsa Amini should be alive today,” tweeted .. https://twitter.com/secblinken/status/1572022270314553344 .. Secretary of State Antony Blinken shortly after her death. “Instead, the United States and the Iranian people mourn her. We call on the Iranian government to end its systemic persecution of women and to allow peaceful protest.”
The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has placed sanctions on Iran’s “morality police” for violence against Iranian women and the violation of the rights of peaceful protesters following the death of Amini.
Adela Suliman is a breaking-news reporter in The Washington Post's London hub. Twitter
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