She is one of the symbols of the wind of freedom and revolt that is blowing in Iran. Roya Piraie has found temporary refuge in France and hopes to one day make it to the UK. Her life changed on September 19, when her mother, Minoo Majidi, was killed during a demonstration. against the death of Mahsa Amini.
In front of the BFMTV microphone, he explains that it was his father and aunts who gave him the terrible news. “When they got home, they were crying, they were screaming. They told me my mother was dead,” says Roya Piraie.
“It was the security forces who shot them with a shotgun. She received 167 lead bullets in her body”, denounced the young student.
She and her family had to bury Minoo Majidi, surrounded by security forces, Roya Piraie told France Inter in mid-November. In the days after the funeral, the young student will improvise a gesture that even today she cannot explain.
“I was in such a state of panic”
“It wasn’t something I had planned, but I was in such a state of panic that I grabbed a pair of scissors and started cutting my hair at the roots,” says Roya Piraie.
“I brought my hair and asked someone to take a photo of me by the grave. I wanted to show my anger and my pain with this photo,” she told BFMTV.
Since then, Roya Piraie has found refuge in France and intends to join the UK. And her gesture has become a symbol that has been reproduced hundreds of times in support of the revolt movement.
In mid-September, the death of 22-year-old activist Mahsa Amini following her arrest in Tehran for not wearing the headscarf sparked an unprecedented protest movement by many Iranian women.
Find this extract and the rest of our great investigation “Iran, at the heart of the revolution” this Monday at 20:50 on LIGNE ROUGE.
Source: BFM TV
