Women’s rights activist Zara Forouq Kanaani hadn’t cut her hair in five years. But one week after the death of Mahsa Amini, she slashed her curls with a pair of scissors at a protest in Germany against the Iranian regime.
“According to our ancestors, when women lost their loved ones or when they were suppressed, they cut their hair,” said Kanaani, an Iranian-German. “It’s to show, ‘Now, I’m a warrior. Now, I’m going to war.’”
Iranian women worldwide have been cutting or shaving their hair as an act of resistance against the Islamic Republic, following the death of Amini on 16 September. The 22-year-old Kurdish woman, also known as Jina, had travelled with her family to Tehran to visit relatives. She died three days after the capital’s ‘morality police’ arrested her for wearing her hijab “improperly”.
