In a video shared many times on social media, an Iranian woman climbs on top of a car in the conservative city of Mashhad. She takes off her headscarf and starts chanting “death to the dictator”. Young protesters nearby join in before the crowd build a fire and women start burning their headscarves and slicing off their hair. Such a direct challenge to the powerful religious authorities that run Iran would usually be unthinkable. But sustained protests have been taking place across the country, sweeping through hundreds of towns and cities there, as well as abroad.
This week on Beyond the Headlines, host Mina Aldroubi looks at how the death of a young Kurdish-Iranian woman from Iran’s north became the rallying cry for years of frustrations and anger at the country’s leaders.