Anti-hijab protests: Fury in Iran as cop sex assault video goes viral

Angry demonstrators took to streets across Iran again yesterday as a video of anti-riot forces sexually assaulting a female protester provoked fury on social media.

Iran has been rocked by protests since Masha Amini's death on September 16, three days after she was arrested by morality police in Tehran for allegedly violating the country's strict dress code for women.

Young women have been at the forefront of the biggest wave of street protests seen in the country for years.

"Guns, tanks, fireworks; the mullahs must get lost," women without hijabs chanted yesterday at a gathering at Tehran's Shariati Technical and Vocational College, in a video widely shared online.

The street violence has led to dozens of deaths, mostly among protestors but also members of the security forces, while hundreds have been arrested.

Numerous videos of the protest have gone viral both inside and outside of Iran since Amini's death. The latest video, which happened in Tehran's Argentina Square on Wednesday, showed a group of officers in protective gear and helmets surrounding a woman on a main road, reported BBC.

One of them grabbed her by the neck and led her into a crowd of about two dozen police, many of whom are on motorcycles. While the woman was being forced towards one of the bikes, another officer approaches her from behind and puts his left hand on her bottom.

The woman then crouched on the ground as more officers surrounded her. A female voice behind the camera was heard saying: "They are pulling her hair."

Drivers in vehicles next to where it was happening started sounding their horns, a form of protest in similar situations seen in the past few days across the country.

The woman, who appears to have no hijab, or headscarf, is then seen standing up and running away from the scene.

At this point, the same voice on the clip was heard saying: "Look at him [the security force officer], he is laughing".

The footage has been verified by the BBC's Persian service.

Tehran's Police Public Relations office has said the incident is being investigated, state news agency Irna reported.

The police statement did not give details of what happened, but said that "enemies using psychological warfare tried to cause public anxiety and incite violence".

The fact that the incident happened in public has led human rights activists to question what security forces might also be doing behind closed doors.

Mistreatment, including sexual and psychological abuse, has been reported by many inmates, especially political prisoners, for years.

Many Iranians commented on social media that the video from Tehran had made them more determined to go out on the streets to protest, with one person saying they intended "to put their anger and fury into action".