Oscar winners Cotillard, Binoche chop off hair in solidarity with Iran protesters

Oscar-winning actors Marion Cotillard and Juliette Binoche, in addition to different French stars of display and music, filmed themselves chopping off locks of their hair in a video posted Wednesday in assist of protesters in Iran.

The weeks-long civil rebellion was sparked by the dying of 22-year-old Iranian lady Mahsa Amini, who died in custody of the Islamic Republic’s morality police in mid-September.

Amini was arrested for allegedly carrying her hijab improperly, revealing an excessive amount of of her hair and violating the regime’s strict costume code. In an act of defiance, protesters are reducing their hair in solidarity with the younger lady.

“For freedom,” Binoche stated as she hacked a big handful of hair off the highest of her head with a pair of scissors, earlier than brandishing it in entrance of the digital camera.

For weeks, dozens of cities throughout Iran have been engulfed by protests crucial of the federal government. The continuing unrest is the nation’s most sustained in additional than a decade, with Amini’s dying a catalyst for public rage in opposition to political repression, an ailing economic system and international isolation.

At the very least 130 folks have died in Iran throughout the violent confrontations between authorities and protesters, based on human rights teams.

The protests have unfold to Iran’s universities and excessive faculties, in addition to overseas to international locations everywhere in the world, together with Canada and France.

‘Their braveness and their dignity obliges us’

The video of Cotillard, Binoche and dozens of different ladies reducing off locks of their hair, hashtagged HairForFreedom, was launched on an Instagram account known as “soutienfemmesiran” — which interprets as “assist ladies in Iran.”

“These ladies, these males are asking for our assist. Their braveness and their dignity obliges us,” stated a publish with the video. “We have now determined to answer the enchantment made to us by reducing — us, too — a few of these locks.”

“Mahsa Amini was abused by the morality police till dying adopted. All she stood accused of was carrying her veil in an inappropriate method. She died for having just a few locks of her hair uncovered,” learn the textual content.

A number of the different ladies who took half included actors Isabelle Huppert, Charlotte Rampling and Charlotte Gainsbourg, who was additionally filmed reducing off a lock of hair from the top of her mom, singer Jane Birkin.

This extremely symbolic gesture additionally echoes Iranian historical past and folklore through which for girls, chopping their hair is an indication of protest. The Shahnameh (The Ebook of Kings), a nationwide epic of Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi between 977 and 1010 A.D., refers to a princess chopping her hair to protest the dying of her husband, which she noticed as unfair.

“Girls reducing their hair is an historical Persian custom additionally present in The Shahnameh, when the fury is stronger than the facility of the oppressor,” Shara Atashi, an Iranian author primarily based in Wales, posted on Twitter.

“For ladies to chop their hair in Iran is a type of protest … a logo to face in opposition to the obligatory hijab,” stated Dorna Javan, an Iranian political scientist primarily based in France who specializes in Iran. Such a visible gesture is a manner for girls internationally to rally across the Iranian ladies’s plight, she added.

Javan described it as a “benevolent gesture” and known as for extra strong political motion from the worldwide group to assist Iranian protesters.

“We won’t scale back the combat of Iranian ladies for his or her rights — which dates again to the second half of the nineteenth century — to the gesture of reducing their hair,” she stated. “However these viral movies are a solution to give a global impression to their combat.”

Excessive-profile protests, arrests

Different high-profile protests have occurred this week. In Strasbourg, France, a Swedish member of the European Parliament snipped off her ponytail throughout a European Union meeting on Tuesday night.

“Till Iran is free, our fury shall be greater than the oppressors. Till the ladies of Iran are free, we’re going to stand with you,” stated Abir Al-Sahlani, who was born in Iraq, Iran’s western neighbour.

As she flexed the scissors, she stated, “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi” — a Kurdish slogan that means “Lady, Life, Freedom” that has develop into a rallying cry for Iranian ladies and their allies since Amini’s dying.

A preferred Iranian artist, Shervin Hajipour, was allegedly arrested in late September for releasing a protest tune known as Baraye, based on The Guardian.

The tune, with lyrics composed from tweets about Amini, shortly went viral after Hajipour posted it on social media. It obtained greater than 40 million views in lower than 48 hours earlier than it was taken down.