Old Clip of Girls Removing Hijabs Viral as Iranian Women ‘Defying’ Regime

The video dates back to 2022 and shows schoolgirls protesting against the death of Mahsa Amini.

An old video showing schoolgirls is being widely shared with the misleading claim that it shows recent visuals of Iranian women protesting against the Islamic regime.

(Source: X/Altered by The Quint)

A video showing scores of girls taking off their hijabs wear raising chants and cheering has gone viral on social media.

The claim: Those sharing this video have claimed that it shows recent visuals from Iran, where women have raised their voice against the Islamic regime in the country.

An archived version of this post can be seen here.

(Source: X (formerly Twitter)/Screenshot)

(Archives of more claims can be seen here, here, and here.)

But...?: The video is old and shows schoolgirls protesting against mandatory hijab laws in 2022.

• The protests were sparked by the custodial death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was arrested by Iran's 'morality' police for allegedly not following their strict hijab laws.

How do we know?: We ran a reverse image search using Google Lens, which led us to a website that had shared these visuals in October 2022.

• It mentioned that schoolgirls had joined protests that "swept Iran" after a woman died during detention, "for breaking the hijab law."

The page carried a screenshot of the viral video.

(Source: Social News XYZ/Altered by The Quint)

• Taking a cue from this, we ran a keyword search with the term ' iran schoolgirls remove hijab protest'.

• We came across a video report by India Today, published on 6 October 2022, which carried a slightly blurred version of the same video.

• The Quint had also included a part of the viral clip in our coverage of the slogans used by the women in this protest in a YouTube short published on 12 October 2022.

• In 2022, Iran saw nationwide protests after the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who was detained by the 'morality' police for not following strict laws related to wearing hijabs.

• You can watch some visuals of the protests here.

Conclusion: An old video of anti-hijab law protests has been shared with a misleading claim that it shows recent visuals of women protesting against the Islamic regime.

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