One photograph from among the dozens showing young Iranians protesting the shooting down of Ukrainian aircraft, has stayed with me over the past few days and weeks.

I find myself returning to the image, which captures a single moment in time: a young woman is bravely confronting, even admonishing, a policeman in full riot gear, energetically wagging her finger as he stares blankly. She is bursting with anger, while he looks out of ideas.

In picture after picture, it is the Iranian women who have been at the forefront of the protests and candlelit vigils, after the government finally admitted, on January 11, that it had "unintentionally" destroyed the airliner shortly after its takeoff from Tehran.

The plane was shot down as a result of “human error” just hours after Iran fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles at two military bases in Iraq housing US troops. The attacks against the bases were Tehran’s response to the assassination of its top military commander Qassim Soleimani in Baghdad by the United States.