A video, around 12 seconds long, showing a woman dancing in the rain in a dress is viral on social media. Those sharing it have claimed the video is from Iran and shows Iranian women breaking free of the conservative chokehold of the regime, which imposes strict rules on women, in a strong message to the authorities.
The video has emerged amid the recent escalation in tensions between Iran and Israel, which began on June 13 with Israel attacking nuclear and military sites in Iran, resulting in the death of 585 people across the country, according to a Washington-based Iranian human rights organisation. Iran soon retaliated with a spate of ballistic missile attacks on several key cities of Israel, which continued through the following days, resulting in the death of 24 people.
On June 17, X user @realMaalouf posted the video of the woman dancing in the rain, labelling it as a 'message' to the Islamic regime. The user posited the video as an act of defiance by Iranian women against the regime, which is also under attack by Israel. At the time of this article being written, the post had been viewed over 600,000 times and reshared over 14,000 times. (Archive)
The video was also shared by X user @mkeshari. It has also seen significant traction, with more than 1.7 lakh views. (Archive)
Another X user, @NagarJitendra, also posted the video with the same claim but deleted it later. An archived version of the post can be accessed here.
The video was also viral on Facebook with the same claim.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
Fact Check
To check the authenticity of the claims on the viral video, we broke down the video into key frames and ran a reverse image search on some of them.
This led us to an Instagram reel, uploaded on August 5, 2023. It is the same clip that has recently gone viral.
On probing further, we came across another video uploaded by the same Instagram user. It shows the same woman seen dancing in the viral video.
We tried more reverse image searches on this video and were found a TikTok account with the username @wildprincess9.
We found the viral video uploaded by this user on July 16, 2023.
Taking cue from her TikTok account we searched and found this person's Instagram profile. In her bio, she identifies herself as Tamta Sabelashvili, a personal trainer based in Strasbourg, a city in northeastern France.
We came across the viral video on her Instagram profile as well. It was uploaded in June 2024.
Thus, the viral video of a woman dancing in the rain, which has been available online since 2023, has been falsely linked to the recent clashes between Iran and Israel. The woman in the video is not Iranian but a personal trainer based in France. The claims being circulated with the video are baseless.
CMP: 25112. 40Moving AVG (EMA) 20 Hour & 40 Hour: 24922 & 24900Moving AVG (EMA) 20 Day & 40 Day: 24838 & 24598Support ...
Hello, my name is Ankit Sahu. I'm a 25 year old self-employed Pirate from the Chhindwara.