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Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates CNN —
A weeping Iranian woman kneels next to her dead brother’s coffin cuts her hair with scissors. Her loved ones scream for justice as she throws strings on the coffin.
They mourned the loss of 36-year-old Javad Heydari, who was fatally shot during one of Iran’s anti-government protests last week.
Images like these have drawn women around the world to join the Iranian women protesting the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. She died in hospital on September 16, three days after being dragged off the streets of Tehran by morality police and taken to a “re-education center” where they taught her etiquette.
From the Middle East, Europe and the United States, women around the world have held rallies and demonstrations to show their solidarity with the plight of Iranian women. Some have also cut or shaved their hair in public or while filming.
By day 12, protests have gripped more than 40 Iranian cities, including the capital Tehran. According to state media, Iranian security forces cracked down on protesters, arresting hundreds and killing at least 41. Some human rights organizations speak of up to 76 fatalities. CNN cannot independently verify these numbers.
So why do women cut their hair?
For many Iranian women, hair cutting – a sign of beauty that the Islamic Republic aims to hide – is a poignant form of protest.
“We want to show them that we don’t care about their standards, their definition of beauty, or how they think we should look,” said 36-year-old Faezeh Afshan, an Iranian chemical engineer living in Bologna, Italy. who was filmed shaving her hair. “It’s to show that we’re angry.”
Afshan attributes the practice of hair cutting to historical cultural practices. “In our literature, hair cutting is a symbol of mourning and sometimes a symbol of protest,” she told CNN. “If we can cut our hair to show we’re angry … we will.”
The practice is cited in Shahnameh, a 1,000-year-old Persian epic and cultural pillar in Iran written by Ferdowsi. Composed of almost 60,000 verses, the poem tells the stories of the Persian kings and is one of the most important literary works in the Persian language. In more than one instance, the epic work has hair plucked in an act of mourning.
“Cutting women’s hair is an ancient Persian tradition…when anger outweighs the might of the oppressor.” tweeted Welsh-based author and translator Shara Atashi. “The moment we have been waiting for has come. Politics driven by poetry.”
In Shahnameh, after the hero Siyavash was killed, his wife Farangis and the girls accompanying her cut their hair to protest injustice, Atashi told CNN.
The characters depicted in the poem “are in everyday use as symbols and archetypes,” she said, adding that the poem has helped shape the identities of Iranians, Afghans and Tajiks for 1,000 years.
“But even in the poetry of Hafez and Khaqani there is haircutting, it’s always about grief and protests against injustice,” she said, referring to other Persian poets.
The practice is also common in other ancient cultures. A 3,500-year-old poem from ancient Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq), the Epic of Gilgamesh addresses themes of grief and despair, using hair cutting or plucking to express fear. The poem is considered one of the oldest literary works in the world and is said to have influenced neighboring cultures.
Shima Babaei, an Iranian activist living in Belgium who said she was arrested by Iran’s notorious Morality Police in 2018 for publicly removing her hijab in a sign of protest, told CNN that haircutting has “an historic meaning for Iranians ” have. Women who lose a direct relative sometimes cut their hair as a sign of sadness and anger, she said.
“For us, Mahsa was our sister,” she said. “And so we protest in this way.”
Cutting hair, Atashi said, “is itself a mourning ceremony to make more visible the depth of suffering at the loss of a loved one.” And in today’s context, she adds, it is a sign of “protest against the killing of our people “.
The Saudi king appoints MBS as prime minister
Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz has appointed his son Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (known as MBS) as prime minister of the kingdom and another son, Prince Khalid, as defense minister, according to Saudi state media.
- Background: The crown prince was promoted from the defense minister and has been the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia for several years. Khalid was previously deputy defense minister. MBS said the kingdom has increased its military industry self-sufficiency from 2% to 15% and plans to reach 50% under the newly appointed defense minister, the state-run Saudi Press Agency reported. King Salman will continue to chair the cabinet meetings he attends, the decree showed.
- Why It Matters: MBS has radically transformed Saudi Arabia since it came to power in 2017, spearheading efforts to diversify the economy from its reliance on oil, allow women to drive and curtail clergymen’s powers. However, his reforms have been accompanied by a crackdown on dissent, with activists, royalty, women’s rights activists and businessmen jailed.
Turkey summons German envoy after politician compares Erdogan to “sewer rat”.
Turkey’s foreign ministry called the German ambassador to Ankara on Tuesday to protest statements by a senior German politician who compared President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to a “little sewer rat,” Portal reported. “We condemn in the strongest possible terms the insulting remarks made by Deputy Speaker of the Bundestag Wolfgang Kubicki about our President in a speech during the Lower Saxony state election campaign,” Turkish Foreign Ministry Spokesman Tanju Bilgic said in a statement.
- Background: Kubicki confirmed to Portal that he made the comment during a campaign rally when he was trying to draw attention to a rising number of illegal migrants moving from Turkey to Germany via the so-called Balkan route. “A sewer rat is a small, cute, but at the same time clever and cunning creature that also appears in children’s stories,” says Kubicki, citing the popular animated film “Ratatouille” as an example.
- Why It Matters: Turkey is a candidate for EU membership, but negotiations have long stalled over disagreements on a range of issues, including Ankara’s human rights record, migration and geopolitics. Insulting the president is a criminal offense in Turkey, where Erdogan and his ruling AKP have been in power for two decades.
At least 4 Palestinians killed, dozens wounded in one of the deadliest Israeli raids in the West Bank this year
At least four Palestinian men were killed and 50 injured in an Israeli military attack in Jenin on Wednesday morning, Palestinian officials said, making it one of the deadliest Israeli attacks in the occupied West Bank this year, with over 100 Palestinians already killed by Israeli soldiers. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the raid was linked to an attack in Tel Aviv in April that killed three people and that suspects retaliated with explosives and gunfire on Wednesday.
- Background: For months, Israel has been regularly raiding West Bank cities, particularly Jenin and Nablus, and says it targets militants and their weapons caches before they have a chance to enter Israel and launch attacks. The operation, dubbed “Breaking the Wave” by the IDF, was launched after a series of attacks on Israelis. At least 20 Israelis and foreigners have been killed in attacks on civilians and soldiers in Israel and the West Bank so far this year.
- Why It Matters: According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, this is already the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since 2015. More than 35 of those killed have been in Jenin. Israel says most of those killed violently colluded with soldiers during military operations, but dozens of unarmed civilians were also killed, human rights groups including B’Tselem said.
Muhammed Semih Ugurlu/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Henna, a reddish-brown dye used in body art in many parts of the Middle East, could find its way onto UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage List.
Henna has been nominated by the United Arab Emirates and the Arab League and has long been part of the heritage and identity of the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia.
Thousands of years old, the temporary dye is used to create elaborate designs, mainly on one’s own hands, often for religious festivals and celebrations.
Representatives from 16 Arab countries met this month to discuss the nomination, according to the Abu Dhabi government media office, stressing that henna plays an important role in Arab and Gulf culture and identity.
The UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage encompasses both ancestral and modern traditions and aims to encourage practices that contribute to “social cohesion” and encourage a shared sense of identity.
The list includes practices such as falconry, yoga, and Arabic calligraphy.
By Nadeen Ebrahim
