Many of the twitter feeds from Iran in the past few weeks have been requesting self defense lessons. The above video demonstrates self defense tactics against baton attacks. The video is in Farsi.
niacINsight – The Blog of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC)
Beltway insights for the Iranian-American community
niacINsight - The Blog of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) 
These self defense ‘tricks’ are not very advisable. It is true that moving towards the attacker is better than moving away (unless you can sprint very fast!). However, in the latter parts of the video the defender is just moving in towards the assailant without covering his head. This is suicide. Do you really think you can slip past that easily in the heat of the moment, with people shouting and screaming around you, tear gas in the air, gun fire, adrenaline pumping? If the assailant strikes diagonally with the baton, rather than vertically (and this is quite common), the application of the moves in this video will result in your head being split open like a water melon. What if the attack is to the thighs? Furthermore, even if you do get behind the assailant’s arm, striking him on the back of the upper arm, on the triple warmer pressure point to be precise, is far more effective than the elbow and shoulder.
In fact, what the video presents is not even a reflex action which the defender could put to good use. There is a kata (set of pre-arranged symbolic moves) in karate, known as kanku-dai (or kushanku), whose initial move is where the kata gets its name from. The orginal Okinawan form of this kata is precisely the safest and most basic reflex-action block against a strike to the head. It involves moving towards the assailant with both hands stretched out in front of you protecting your own head. You have to keep your head ducked, below your hands (at elbow height for example), your backside sticking out even and move in low. This is just the start to avoid being knocked out in the first few seconds of the encounter. After that the serious work of putting the assailant out of commission begins.
As you can see, this is getting detailed and this is not the place to get into lengthy discussions about it. If you are interested in more details, Vince Morris’ DVD on kanku-dai can be recommended (http://www.kissakikarate.com/shop.htm, Kanku Dai Revisited – Double DVD). Self-defense 101 of this nature is not going to help against trained riot police.
How about showing people how to make Molotov cokctails!