Beyond the Headlines: How the death of a Kurdish-Iranian woman sparked an outcry

In a video shared many times on social media, an Iranian woman climbs on top of a car in the conservative city of Mashhad. She takes off her headscarf and starts chanting “death to the dictator”. Young protesters nearby join in before the crowd build a fire and women start burning their headscarves and slicing off their hair.

Such a direct challenge to the powerful religious authorities that run Iran would usually be unthinkable. But sustained protests have been taking place across the country, sweeping through hundreds of towns and cities there, as well as abroad.

This week on Beyond the Headlines, host Mina Aldroubi looks at how the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish-Iranian woman from Iran’s north, became the rallying cry for years of frustration and anger at the country’s leaders.