Fact Check: Videos of Iranian women 'defying' the regime amid ongoing conflict are misleading

As Israel and Iran continued exchanging strikes for the seventh day, several videos surfaced online claiming that women in Iran were celebrating Israeli attacks on the country, a form of defiance against the theocratic government. Let's debunk two such claims.Dance protest?A video allegedly showing an Iranian woman dancing in the rain surfaced online. Sharing this video, an X user wrote, 'An Iranian woman sends a message to the Islamic regime: 'We will dance on your grave with all our hearts. We now have joy and hope for the future. The murderers of Iran's children and women will fall. The Islamic regime will perish.'advertisement
The viral video was originally shared by Tamta Sabelashvili, a Georgian model and influencer, on her Instagram account on June 5, 2024. The model has listed her location as Strasbourg, France, on her Facebook account. She has also shared several photos and videos of the city on Instagram, with captions written in Georgian. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Tamta Sabelashvili (@tatasb_9)Refuting the viral claim, she shared a screenshot of the community note attached to the post, which said that she was not Iranian and that the video was not recent. Additionally, we found the viral video posted on her TikTok account in July 2023.Sabelashvili also confirmed to India Today Fact Check that she is Georgian, and not Iranian. She said she has no idea why her video is being shared with such claims.Women removing hijabs?advertisementAnother such video allegedly showed several Iranian women removing their hijabs in a school. Sharing this video, an X user wrote, 'Iranian girls remove their hijabs, take over their school, and chant, 'Death to the dictator and the Islamic regime'.'Reverse image-searching keyframes from the viral video led us to the same video in a compilation of Iranian student protest clips uploaded to YouTube on October 4, 2022. This indicates that the viral video is neither recent nor related to the ongoing Iran-Israel conflict.We also found several 2022 news reports containing the screengrabs from the viral video. As per a report, the clip showed schoolgirls waving their headscarves in the air against the Iranian regime after the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, who was detained by Iran's morality police on September 13, 2022, in Tehran for allegedly violating the country's mandatory hijab law. She died in the hospital three days later, sparking widespread outrage and protests.We did not find any credible media reports indicating widespread mass protests by Iranian women amid the Israel-Iran conflict.Thus, it's clear that these videos are not related to the present Iran-Israel conflict.Tune InMust Watch
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