In Iran, the revolt against the veil turns into an anti-regime challenge

Correspondent in Istanbul

She spins, a white shadow among the shadows.

She turns and turns again, hair in the wind, her arms in spirals, before throwing her veil into a bonfire.

Immediately, a swarm of other women followed in her footsteps in this public square in Sari, in the north of the country, in turn burning their headscarves to thunderous applause.

If the Iranian revolt that has inflamed the country since the death of Mahsa Amini on September 16 could be summed up in one image, it would be that of this anonymous one-night dancer in the middle of a crowd of men and women, captured by dozens of smartphones and shared as a single cry on social networks.

Ten days already that Iran is rising up, all generations combined, from North to South, from the wealthy neighborhoods of Tehran to the provincial towns, to say no to the compulsory hijab, no to an Islamic Republic which has bullied women for more than forty years, no to the brutality of the morality police that caused...

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