1 of 3 | A person places a candle during a demonstration in solidarity with Mahsa Amini at Castello Square in Turin, Italy, on Saturday. Photo by Tino Romano/EPA-EFE
Oct. 15 (UPI) -- Protests over the treatment of women in Iran escalated further on Saturday after video surfaced of a police officer apparently groping a woman in a crowd.
Two separate videos posted by the BBC appear to show a group of police in riot gear attempting to control a crowd of protestors, with at least one officer groping a woman. Footage taken in the capital Tehran on Wednesday appears to show police attempting to force the woman onto a motorcycle, but she resists and manages to escape.
Iranian authorities said Saturday they were aware of the videos and would investigate, without elaborating.
Tensions in Iran have continued to ratchet up as ongoing nationwide demonstrations begin to hit vital sectors of the economy. Earlier in the week, hundreds of oil workers joined anti-government protests over alleged human rights violations.
The strike at the Bushehr and Damavand petrochemical plants in the southern Iranian port town of Assaluyeh involved more than 1,000 workers who blocked roads and chanted "Death to the dictator!"
Protests began last month after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, a Kurdistan Iranian, died Sept. 16 after she was detained by the country's so-called morality police, or Guidance Patrol, for violating the regime's strict hijab laws.
Witnesses claim she was beaten heavily by the arresting officers.
In response to her death, Iranians throughout the country have taken to the streets in anti-regime protests that have been met with violent resistance. An Amnesty International report released Thursday found at least 23 children have been killed as authorities crack down on demonstrators.
Solidarity protests have broken out in several countries across the world.
Internet disruption has been reported across Iran with reports of local journalists being arrested for covering the demonstrations.
U.S. President Joe Biden voiced his support on Friday for the Iranian demonstrators.
"I look over there, and I see 'Free Iran.' And I want you to know we stand with the citizens and brave women of Iran, for real -- for real -- who, right now, are demonstrating to secure their very basic, fundamental rights," Biden said ahead of a prepared speech at a community college in Irvine, Calif.
"Women and men should have the right -- the right to freedom of expression and assembly. And women -- women all over the world are being persecuted in various ways. But they should be able to wear, in God's name, what they want to wear. No one should be telling them what to wear.
"And Iran has to end the violence against its own citizens simply exercising their fundamental rights. And, you know, [Mahsa] Amini's death was -- I've been doing foreign policy a long, long time. It stunned me what it awakened in Iran. And it's awakened something that I don't think will be quieted in a long, long time," the president said.
