PropertyValue
?:author
?:datePublished
  • 2022-06-03 (xsd:date)
?:headline
  • Old footage falsely linked to 2022 protests in support of deposed Pakistan leader (en)
?:inLanguage
?:itemReviewed
?:mentions
?:reviewBody
  • Following reports that hundreds of supporters of former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan had been arrested in May, 2022, a video was widely circulated on Facebook and Twitter alongside a claim that it shows police officers torturing a pro-Khan protester. However, the video was shared in a false context; it has circulated online since at least April 2021 in posts about police officers apprehending a drug suspect. Punjab Police pulling nails of PTI protesters! reads the claim shared in this Facebook post on May 29, 2022. The claim was shared alongside a 36-second clip that appears to show police officers pinning down a man. The post circulated after Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party -- referred to in the post by its acronym PTI -- accused police of arresting and detaining hundreds of its supporters in raids in the nation's most populous province, Punjab. Khan, a former cricketer turned populist politician, was ousted from power in April in a no-confidence vote , but has since used mass rallies across the country to put pressure on the country's fragile new coalition government. In Punjab's main city Lahore, police deployed tear gas against Khan supporters attempting to remove roadblocks and travel in convoys to the capital, Islamabad. Screenshot of the misleading Facebook post, taken on June 3, 2022. The identical video was also shared with a similar claim here , here and here on Facebook and here , here and here on Twitter. Comments suggest that some users were misled by the claim. One user wrote: If this man is still alive and out of prison, it is his right to exact revenge, and he can do so in the same manner. Other user said: Shame on the Punjab police department. However, the claim is false. Keyword searches on Google found the video was previously shared on YouTube and Facebook in April 2021 -- a year before Khan's ouster. Below is a screenshot comparison between the video shared in the false post (left) and the 2021 YouTube video (right): Screenshot comparison between the video shared in the false post (left) and the 2021 YouTube video (right). The YouTube and Facebook posts from 2021 both claim the video shows Punjab police pulling the fingernails of the man they were apprehending. Authorities denied the claim, according to a report by the Daily Pakistan newspaper on April 24, 2021. In response to the posts that recirculated the clip in 2022, the Punjab police said on Twitter on May 29: This is an old video from April 2021 that is being shared again. It added that the man shown in the video -- allegedly a drug suspect -- had not been tortured. The post contained an image of a man with his fingernails intact. یہ اپریل 2021 کی پرانی ویڈیو ہے جس کو دوبارہ شیئر کیا جارہا ہے۔ کلپ میں دیکھا جا سکتا ہے کہ (منشیات فروش) ملزم کے ہاتھ سے بلیڈ کو کھینچا گیا۔ ملزم گرفتاری کے ڈر سے اہلکاروں پر بلیڈ سے حملہ آور ہوا تھا۔ https://t.co/x6vsvKhu4r pic.twitter.com/bvrWDiwNeS — Punjab Police Official (@OfficialDPRPP) May 29, 2022 June 6, 2022 This article was amended to fix a style error in the first paragraph. (en)
?:reviewRating
rdf:type
?:url