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A woman filmed herself being verbally and physically attacked by a man when she refused to wear a veil.

'Heroic' passersby defended the woman after a man in a car repeatedly screamed that she could 'obey the rules' and put on a hijab during the altercation in Iran.

They cheered and beeped their horns when she demanded he 'call the police' if he had a problem with what she was wearing.

The unnamed woman said: "What can you do to me?

"Go away! I will wear a veil when you wear one as well. Don't call me 'sister'. Go away."

She added: "I don't like this veil. I don't want to obey this rule. It's my right.

"Get lost I like the way I look without the veil."

During the two-and-a-half minute altercation, filmed in Tehran, the man gets out of his car and starts screaming in the woman's face.

He then slaps her when she still refuses his demand that she put on the veil.

The footage was shared and subtitled by #WhiteWednesdays campaigners.

The social media campaign is against a law which forces women to wear a headscarf and is gaining significant momentum in Iran.

Women across the country have been posting pictures of themselves bare-headed and waving their veils aloft on sticks.

Masih Alinejad, founder of My Stealthy Freedom, helped start the online movement and encouraged woman to send photos and videos of themselves without their heads covered in public.

The campaign has received hundreds of videos since it started almost four years ago.

Last month police in Tehran arrested 29 women for protesting against the mandatory dress code.

Authorities claimed that the campaign was instigated from outside Iran through illegal satellite channels.

But Soheila Jolodarzadeh, a female member of the Iranian parliament, told local news agencies that the protests had been brewing for a while because women were being put under 'unnecessary restraints'.

"They’re happening because of our wrong approach," she said.

"We imposed restrictions on women and put them under unnecessary restraints."

Before the 1979 Islamic revolution many Iranian women wore Western-style clothes, including miniskirts and short-sleeved tops.

The dress code was enforced when the late Ayatollah Khomeini came to power.

Women were forced to cover their hair in line with a strict interpretation of Islamic law on modesty.

Make-up was also discouraged and women were told to start wearing loose skirts and dress that covered their knees.

More than 100,000 people took to the streets in protest against the law in 1979 and opposition has never fully gone away.