In 2019, Sadaf Khadem was the first Iranian boxer to step into a ring, bareheaded. Exiled in France since then, she fears today the violent repression of demonstrations in her country and calls for new forms of protest.<br /><br />"I do not want the number of deaths to increase. We must move forward with diplomacy and strategy," Sadaf Khadem said as Iran was rocked by a wave of protests after the death of Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for not respecting the strict female dress code in the country.<br /><br />Khadem had been confronted several times by the vice police for fighting bare-headed, bare-armed and bare-legged when she was in Iran. Her country's law requires its sportswomen to wear the hijab, even abroad.
