The exiled journalist on why Iran’s rulers fear the women’s uprising and why western leaders are failing protesters
The first thing to notice about Masih Alinejad is her hair: a mass of corkscrew curls sometimes worn loose like a radiant halo, occasionally pinned up, almost always with a flower pinned above her left ear. This is not a gratuitous comment on her appearance, but at the heart of a battle that brought her to Paris this week to speak to President Emmanuel Macron.
Alinejad is the international face and voice of angry women in Iran who are being beaten, jailed and even killed for throwing off their compulsory headscarves and showing their hair. Today in Paris, she has a very clear message for the French president and other western leaders: stop shaking hands with Iranian clerics, stop dealing with Iran.
