Twenty-two-year-old Hadis Najafi does not look like a foot soldier in a revolution. In the last film of Najafi alive, it is night and she’s walking down a road in Karaj, her home town, smiling and scrunching up her hair into a ponytail. She is young, blonde and on her way to a demonstration. Najafi reminds me of my own daughter, tying up her hair in the same casual, no-nonsense way. Thirty minutes later, she was dead, shot six times in the face, hand, neck and heart. Her crime? To go to a protest and not to wear a hijab.
Iran is locked in a clash between its medieval Islamic theocracy and the TikTok generation. The killing of young women like Najafi and Mahsa Amini in late summer has brought the students out on the streets and now there have been thousands of arrests: rappers, actresses, writers, musicians and sport personalities – even the producer of a football podcast.
