This is the moment women and girls cut their hair and set fire to a hijab in the middle of Bristol today (Sunday) in solidarity with protesters campaigning for greater freedoms in Iran, following the death of a woman there last week.
There have been huge protests, riots and uprisings across Iran in the past week, following the death in police custody of a young Kurdish Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini. She was detained by the so-called ‘morality police’ in Iran for not correctly wearing a hijab, or Islamic headscarf, and died in a police station.
Now those protests have taken place in Bristol too - with organisers and protesters saying they wanted to show solidarity with their relatives and friends in Iran, and women all over the world.
Updates: One man dies and eight are injured in Easton flat fire
The protesters chanted and sang in Persian, proclaiming support for those campaigning in Iran. An estimated 30-plus people have been killed as the Iranian security services attempt to crackdown on the protests.
In Bristol, a headscarf was symbolically burned, before two young women took scissors to their own long hair. A man also knelt with them and shaved his head in protest, before a young girl also cut her hair in protest at the restrictive laws in Iran.
As numbers involved swelled to around 200, one organiser of the protest said: “A few days ago a woman was killed in Iran by the morality police. Now the people are angry, now the Government of Iran is killing hundreds of people and these people are angry.
“We are here for freedom, we are for Mahsa, the woman who was killed and now more than 30 other people are killed in Iran because of the protests. So we are here to say to the world that we fight for Iran,” she added.
Tara Miran, a well-known Kurdish activist in Bristol, joined the protest in solidarity. She told Bristol Live that Mahsa was a Kurdish woman called Zhina, which means ‘life’. “She was brutally murdered and killed by the police because some hair was showing,” she said.
“Sadly, the loss of her has caused a huge uprising and also for me, it’s extra significant because unfortunately it takes tragedies like this. We’re all united, because if Iran goes down it’s us as well. It’s about the rights for Kurdish women as well.
“In Iran, the rule of the land is that you have to wear it and you have to wear it in a proper fashion. I guess what Jiyan did was not wear it in the proper fashion. What we are seeing there is that the men are rising as well. The men are out chanting out there ‘women, life and freedom’. It’s very emotional.
“Everyone here, their families are back there - their mothers, their aunties, these are the women who have to follow this and live in this regime. We’re here because we can’t be there. They are braver than us, because they are doing it back there. People are paying the price for speaking up for their freedom.
Story continues below
“So actually, we’re the privileged ones because it’s easy for us to do this here. We had to come. We’re doing this here in the hope that it reaches everyone here, and it reaches everyone back there,” she added.
The protesters grew louder and then marched down the pavement the short distance from College Green to the Cascade Steps in The Centre to continue their protests.
READ NEXT
- Clifton pub concerned it may have to reduce opening hours due to electric costs
- 'Serene' woodland eco house on Somerset's 'Millionaire's Row' up for sale
- Great Bristol Run 2022 road closures and timings for 10K and half marathon
- Met Office UK weather: Mammoth Icelandic storm to bring -3C deep freeze to UK
- Shopkeeper losing his licence says he has been 'unfairly blamed' by police for crime hotspot in Old Market
