TV Series Clip Shared as Man Dancing at Daughter's Funeral Amid Iran Protests

The video is from a TV series called 'Ata Ocagi'.

The video is from an Azeri TV series called 'Ata Ocagi'.

(Source: YouTube/Altered by The Quint)

A video of an elderly man, dancing while crying, has gone viral on social media with a claim that it shows a father dancing at his daughter's funeral, who was killed during the ongoing protests in Iran.

Massive protests erupted in Iran following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody, who was arrested for "improperly" wearing the hijab, mandated by law in the country.

As on 30 September, 83 people are said to have been killed in the violent protests.

However, this video is unrelated to the current situation in the country. We found that the video is from an Azerbaijani TV series 'Ata Ocagi' and shows a funeral procession for a woman's death in the series.

CLAIM

The video is being shared with text in English, which reads –

"Heartbreaking. Iranian father who promised to live long enough to dance at his daughter's wedding ends up dancing at her funeral after she was killed by the Iranian morality police for not covering her hair. (sic)"

An archive of this post can be seen here.

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

Archives of more posts sharing the video can be seen here, here, and here.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

Using InVID, a video verification tool, we divided the video into keyframes and ran a reverse image search using Yandex search engine, which led us to a website that carried a video uploaded on YouTube.

The video was uploaded on 22 October 2021, nearly eleven months before the protests broke out in Iran.

The video was uploaded in 2021.

(Source: YouTube/Altered by The Quint)

The translated description of this video said that it showed a portion of an Azerbaijani series called 'Ata Ocagi'.

This was a longer version of the viral video. It shows a sequence leading up to the funeral and the part that is now viral can be seen sat 03:45 mark.

Taking a cue from this, we found more visuals of the series published by a verified YouTube channel named Xəzər Film.

One of these videos, uploaded on 9 January 2018, showed the same man in the video, along with many other people, tearfully visiting a woman in the hospital.

The video was uploaded in 2018.

(Source: YouTube/Altered by The Quint)

The caption mentioned that the "new series" would discuss family conflict, to mirror the audience's lives in the show. It named director Rufat Shahbazov, adding that the series would air on Khazar TV.

The part of this series, used to share the claim starts approximately 19 minutes into the video.

We found the TV channel's website, which mentioned that the channel's office was in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Clearly, the video is from a TV series and has no connection with the ongoing protests in Iran.

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