Social media in Iran has drawn attention over a video showing a member of the riot police grabbing a woman’s buttocks. Police are embarrassed by the footage and say an investigation is ongoing. It is not clear what this investigation entails. A statement said only that enemies of the Islamic Republic were “causing riots and violence through psychological warfare.”

The pictures were taken during protests in the capital Tehran this week. The woman was rounded up in the street by riot police and grabbed by the neck. She tries to free herself from a group of police officers on motorbikes and is then grabbed by the buttocks. The woman manages to escape with the help of passers-by.

Police initially claimed the video had been tampered with by government opponents, but later conceded that was not the case.

Iranian men also demonstrate

Authorities in Iran block social media, but images of demonstrations demanding freedom and the resignation of the government emerge daily. Women who take to the streets and remove their headscarves are applauded by men who have joined the protests.

There are also videos of women being attacked by the police and fighting back. In response to the latest images, Iranians say they are now even more motivated to take to the streets and demonstrate.

Human rights activists wonder what the Iranian police do to women behind closed doors, in police stations and prisons where they can freely go about their business. One of the things that was said on social media was that the police were “abusing the girls of this country not only in prisons but now openly on the streets,” the BBC reported.

Week-long protests

After the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, there has been unrest in Iran for weeks. She died shortly after being arrested by police for not covering her head. Authorities say she died of a heart attack, but her family says she died after religious police struck.