Protests have erupted throughout the world after Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman, was detained by the country’s morality police for allegedly not adhering to Iran’s strict Islamic dress code and later died in police custody.
Women protesters in Iran and other countries have taken off their headscarves and cut their hair in a show of solidarity with Amini.
After Amini’s death, some people on social media shared a video that they claim shows an Iranian father who promised he would dance at his daughter’s wedding instead dancing at her funeral after she was killed by the country’s morality police for not covering her hair. One of these videos shared on Twitter has nearly 500,000 views and more than 10,000 shares.
THE QUESTION
Does a viral video show an Iranian father dancing at his daughter’s funeral?
THE SOURCES
- Xezer Film episode of "Ata Ocaği" shared on YouTube in July 2018
- TinEye, a reverse image search tool
THE ANSWER
No, a viral video does not show an Iranian father dancing at his daughter’s funeral.
WHAT WE FOUND
The viral video doesn’t show an Iranian father dancing at his daughter’s funeral after she was killed by the morality police. It’s an edited clip from a TV series called "Ata Ocaği" from Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan is bordered in the north by Russia, in the west by Armenia and in the south by Iran.
The footage used in the viral video is from the 78th episode of the TV series, which Azerbaijani TV network Xezer Film shared on YouTube in January 2018. "Ata Ocaği" is centered around a family conflict, according to the video’s caption.
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At about 19:25 into the video, actor Qurban Ismayilov, who is incorrectly labeled in the viral clip as a mourning Iranian father, is seen dancing in the episode of the TV show. This real footage from the show was used to make the edited social media clip.
When comparing the two videos, you can also hear that the TV show and edited viral clip use different songs. The edited viral clip uses a version of the song “Another Love” by English singer-songwriter Tom Odell. In the TV show, the song “Men Gedecem” by Azerbaijani rapper Miri Yusif plays during the scene.
This isn’t the first time that edited clips from the TV show have been shared online, claiming to show an Iranian father mourning the loss of his daughter.
Through a reverse image search, VERIFY found a post shared on Imgur in 2021 using the same footage from "Ata Ocaği." In this version, the poster claimed that the man’s daughter died from coronavirus rather than police violence.
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