Taraneh Alidoost, Iranian star of Oscar-winning film 'The Salesman', poses without headscarf

Taraneh Alidoost, an Iranian actress best known for Asghar Farhadi's 2016 Oscar-winning drama film 'The Salesman', has aligned herself with ongoing anti-government Mahsa Amini protests to end the mandatory Hijab law in the country. that began in September this year. She shared a photo of herself without a headscarf on Instagram in solidarity with the demonstrators. She can be seen holding a sign that, as per the BBC, reads, "Woman, Life, Freedom" in Kurdish. The message is presumably in Kurdish and not her native Persian, because of the death of a 22-year-old woman called Mahsa Amini, who was allegedly a victim of police brutality after she was arrested by religious morality police called Guidance Patrol for wearing an 'improper' hijab.

The protests kicked off on September 16, 2022 when Taraneh died in a hospital in the country's capital Tehran. While the authorities claimed that she died due to a coma induced by a heart attack, eyewitnesses, which included women who were detained with her, said she was beaten by the law enforcement personnel.

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Her death instigated a wave of protests by Iranian women on a scale not seen since at least 2009. Many women publicly removed their hijab and cut their hair. In the resulting crackdown, more than 300 demonstrators have been killed as per the non-profit Iran Human Rights.

Since the fall of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979 during the Iranian Revolution, Iran has been an Islamic Republic, with elements of both Shia Islamic theocracy and democracy. Its laws are completely in accordance with Islamic law (Sharia). Its highest religious and political authority is called the Supreme Leader of Iran, a title currently held by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei), who succeeded Ruhollah Khomeini.

'The Salesman' was bestowed with an Oscar in the 2017 ceremony. The director Farhadi, whose 2011 film 'A Separation' also won an Oscar, becoming the first Iranian film to do so, notably did not attend the event due to the then-president Donald Trump's executive order barring people belonging to several Muslim-majority countries from entering the country, also called the 'Muslim Ban' by critics.