Daily Times

France’s entertainment industry is continuing to rally behind Iranians protesting the brutal government crackdown that followed the death in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini on Sept. 16.

More than 1,000 working professionals from the world of French cinema, including luminaries like Isabelle Hupert, Lea Seydoux and Thierry Fremaux, had signed an open letter published on Tuesday, urging anyone “shocked” by Amini’s “murder” to “support the protesters loud and clear.” In stark, defiant language, it called for an end to the “insufferable coercion” women face in Iran.

And on Wednesday, 53 female French actresses and musicians cut their hair as part of #HairForFreedom, a widely viewed Instagram video campaign in support of the protestors. A video posted on Instagram begins with Juliette Binoche clipping off several inches of thick brown hair. “For Freedom!” she says in English. Other French stars then followed suit.

The video, spearheaded by a trio of French lawyers, spread rapidly on social media and activist sites supporting the protestors in Iran, where internet use is tightly censored and monitored.

On Sept. 13, Iran’s morality police arrested Amini, an Iranian activist of Kurdish origin, for violating strict religious codes regulating how women wear and cover their hair. She was taken to a morality “re-education center” in Tehran where, according to Iranian authorities, she died of a heart attack three days later. Family and friends dispute this account, saying she had no pre-existing conditions; eye-witnesses and friends say Amini was badly beaten during her arrest, according to media accounts.