Authors
Vaibhav is a part of Newschecker’s English team, where he spots and debunks all kinds of misinformation, making the rounds on the internet. A Journalism graduate from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, he holds an M.A degree in Philosophy and an M.Phil from Delhi University.
Claim
Hours following her detention by Iran’s dreaded morality police for allegedly violating the hijab regulations, Mahsa Amini, 22, went into a coma. Witnesses accused the police of beating her. Mahsa Amini has since passed away. In this context, a video of a police officer manhandling a woman before dragging her into a police car, is going viral on social media claiming to show police brutality against Mahsa Amini in Iran for violating hijab rules.
Fact
We started our investigation by conducting a reverse search of the key-frames of the video on Google to verify its authenticity and found a report by Iran Wire uploaded on their website on 17th May, 2022 titled ‘Reactions to the police encounter with a woman in the Letyan dam’ when translated from Arabic via Google translate.
The report contained the same video which is viral now posted on 7th May, 2022 along with the caption ‘The broadcast of the video of the arrest of a woman near the Letyan Dam, which was accompanied by a sharp collision #پلیس , led to a reaction and the issuing of a special order by the head of the Tehran police.’ when translated via Google translate.
Newschecker conducted a keyword search with the words “Letyan Dam”, “woman arrested”, “police” and found a report by BBC titled ‘The violent arrest of a woman in Letyan Dam; The agents were arrested, the police force: Grass was discovered in the car’ when translated via Google translate uploaded on their website on 8th May, 2022.
According to the report, in the video, a plainclothes police officer attempted to arrest a lady using physical force and aggression, which resulted in her falling to the ground. They were assisted by two more police officers.
This video received a lot of attention and negative feedback after it was shared on social media several times.
The report also stated that the Tehran Police Information Centre stated Tuesday, May 17, 2022 that Hossein Rahimi, the chief of the capital’s police, had given the required directives to follow up on this incident following the release of this video.
According to Murad Moradi, a deputy social police officer for Greater Tehran, the apprehended women were found to have “quantities of drugs of the grass kind (marijuana)” in their automobile.
Newschecker also checked the official Instagram account of BBC Persian where we found the video uploaded on 7th May, 2022.
Result: False
Our Sources
Report by Iran Wire on 17th May, 2022
Tweet by Mreza Danaei on 7th May, 2022
Report by BBC on 8th May, 2022
Instagram post by BBC Persian on 7th May, 2022
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Authors
Vaibhav is a part of Newschecker’s English team, where he spots and debunks all kinds of misinformation, making the rounds on the internet. A Journalism graduate from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, he holds an M.A degree in Philosophy and an M.Phil from Delhi University.
