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.

"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.

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.