Social media abuzz over cop’s shove on protester

Tehran – A video showing an Iranian police officer shoving a woman protesting against mandatory headscarves off her makeshift podium in a busy Tehran street sparked criticism on social media yesterday.

The video of the solitary female demonstrator was apparently shot on Enghelab (Revolution) Street, where a woman was first detained in December after standing with her head uncovered waving a scarf on a stick.

Since then several dozen Iranian women have published photos of themselves in the street or parks, their heads uncovered, waving their scarves in an act of defiance.

The woman in the video is seen standing on a street cabinet with her arms raised in the air, her long blond hair worn in a high pony tail.

Asked by two police officers to get down, she replies calmly: “Tell me what my offence is and I’ll get down.”

“Disturbing public order,” one of them says.

A crowd then forms and starts clapping.

In the second part of the video, apparently shot on a cellphone, one of the officers steps up to the same height as the woman and shoves her off her podium, to the indignation of onlookers.

“Where are the human rights?” a male voice asks.

Lawyer and human rights activist Nasrin Sotoudeh wrote on Facebook that the policeman broke the law because “no man has the right to treat a woman like this”. –