A video has been viewed thousands of times on social media alongside a false claim it shows a topless activist in Iran following a string of deadly anti-hijab rallies. The protests were sparked by the death of an Iranian woman in September 2022 while she was in police custody for allegedly violating rules on wearing the headscarf. In fact, the video shows a rally in Amsterdam.
The clip was shared here on October 6, 2022. It has been viewed more than 840 times.
The footage shows a topless woman addressing a rally while the crowd waves old Persian flags used when the Shah was still in power. An upside-down Kurdish flag can also be seen in the video.
The video was posted alongside an English caption that reads: “Anti-Hijab protest now escalated to a Topless protest in Iran… From removing of hijab to throwing of hijab to burning of hijab to cleaning of shoes by hijab.”
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Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman, was pronounced dead on September 16, days after the country’s morality police detained her for allegedly breaching rules requiring women to wear hijab headscarves and modest clothes.
Iranian women, including university students and even schoolgirls, were at the forefront of the biggest wave of social unrest to grip Iran in almost three years — they have been marching without the mandatory head covering, burning hijabs and cutting off their hair.
AFP reported at least 122 people have been killed in the protests across the country.
The clip was also shared here and here on Facebook, and here on Twitter, where it was viewed more than 9,000 times.
However, the claim is false.
Amsterdam protests
A reverse image search on Google found the original video published here on October 1, 2022 on the official Twitter of Radio Zamaneh, a Persian-language news service based in the Netherlands.
The tweet in Persian identified the protester that addressed the crowd as Iranian activist Niloofer Fouladi. It went on to say she took part in the rally “in protest against the forced hijab and the murder of Mahsa Amini in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, October 1, 2022”.
Fouladi left Iran after she was arrested in 2018 for taking part in another anti-hijab protest, according to Radio Zamaneh.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the false post (left) and Radio Zamaneh tweet (right):
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In the clip shared by Radio Zamaneh, a sign that read “Madame Tussauds” was visible outside one of the buildings in the background of the protest. Madame Tussauds is a chain of waxwork museums known for displaying life-size wax replicas of famous personalities.
AFP geolocated the clip to Amsterdam’s Dam Square using the sign.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the Madame Tussauds sign in Amsterdam in the protest clip (left) and a Google Street View image seen at the same location (right):
Voice of America’s (VOA) Persian service also posted a clip of the same protest in Amsterdam from a different angle. The VOA tweet said the protest took place in Amsterdam.
Radio Zamaneh posted a video of Fouladi where she talked about her protest in the Dutch capital.
“What I did in the Amsterdam rally was a type of protest like burning headscarves or cutting hair and it doesn’t mean at all that all women should (protest) naked,” she said.
AFP has previously debunked false claims about the anti-hijab protests in Iran here, here and here.
