As the conflict between Iran and Israel rages on, social media users have amplified a 35-second-long video, which appears to show a large gathering of female students taking off their headscarves and sloganeering. Users have suggested that the video is from Iran and symbolises a defiance of the rigid codes that restrict women’s agency under the country’s theocratic regime, implying that Iran is undergoing internal turmoil even as it fights attacks from Israel.
X user @realMaalouf posted the viral video on June 18, claiming the women were chanting “Death to the dictator and the Islamic regime”. At the time this article was written, the post had gathered over 7 million views. (Archive)
Iranian girls remove their hijabs, take over their school, and chant “Death to the dictator and the Islamic regime”.
— Dr. Maalouf (@realMaalouf) June 18, 2025
Another X user, @sumit45678901, also posted the video with the same claim. It had over 750,000 views at the time this article was written. (Archive)
Iranian girls remove their hijabs, take over their school, and chant “Death to the dictator and the Islamic regime”.
Fuck Khamenei Regimi
Iran in 1970s . Do you want them back ? #IranVsIsrael #Khamenei #IranIsraelConflict #TelAviv pic.twitter.com/GsnAbWYohn
— sumit 🇮🇳 (@sumit45678901) June 18, 2025
Several other X users, including @debajits3110, @PankajTiwarri, @journorai, @EliAfriatISR and @LibTearCreator1, among others, shared the video with the same claim.
(Archived links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
Fact Check
To verify the authenticity of the claims, we ran a reverse image search on one of the key frames from the viral video. This led us to an X post, from October 5, 2022, which features the same clip that has recently gone viral. The caption, translated from Spanish, reads: “Learn and see… THIS IS REVOLUTION. Iranian students take off their headscarves and protest furiously against their country’s authorities. ‘NO MORE’ was the cry for independence from a servile yoke that dehumanized them. I repeat: THIS IS REVOLUTION!” (Archive)
Aprende ve… ESTO ES REVOLUCIÓN. Estudiantes iraníes se quitan el velo y protestan con furor contra las autoridades de su País. NO VA MÁS era el grito de independencia de un yugo servil que las deshumanizaba. Repito: ¡ESTO ES REVOLUCIÓN! pic.twitter.com/hOnCA73dCP
— Luis Antonio Ruiz (@luisantonio_r) October 5, 2022
Taking cue from this, we ran a relevant keyword search and found that this particular incident was among several others that took place across Iran in the aftermath of the custodial killing of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini on 16 September, 2022, She was arrested by Iran’s morality police for having allegedly violated strict Islamic rules that require women to cover their heads.
We also came across news reports that corroborated this. News outlets such as Koha, and Social News XYZ, published reports on the protest, featuring visuals from the viral video. Both these reports are dated October 4, 2022.
Thus, the viral video, which is being shared with claims that it shows female Iranian students defying the Islamic regime by flinging off their headscarves, is actually from 2022. Students in various schools and universities across Iran flouted the strict moral codes by refusing to cover their heads, to protest the custodial killing of Mahsa Amini. It is unrelated to the June conflict with Israel and the claims are misleading.
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