Chinese Police Crackdown on COVID-19 Patients? Nope, Video is Old

The visuals pertain to an incident of police crackdown at Prince Edward station in Kowloon, Hong Kong.

The incident took place at Prince Edward Station in Kowloon, Hong Kong.

(Source: Altered by The Quint)

CLAIM

A video which shows police action in what looks like an underground metro is being massively shared online amid the coronavirus scare. The caption along with the video claims that the police in China is having trouble with patients having coronavirus as they are fleeing.

The caption in Hindi reads, “हम यहां बैठकर.. व्हाट्सएप और फेसबुक पर.. *कोरोना वायरस* का मजाक उड़ाने में लगे हुए हैं अगर.. कोरोना का असली कहर देखना है तो.. चाइना से आई इस वीडियो को देखें एक बार नहीं , दो बार नहीं , 3 बार बड़े ध्यान से देखें कि इस महामारी के शिकंजे में फंसे हुए लोगों को.. पकड़ने के लिए.. वहां पुलिस प्रशासन को कितनी दिक्कतें झेलनी पड़ रही हैं आपका दिल भी दहल उठेगा इस वीडियो को देखकर |”

[Translation: We are making fun of coronavirus on Facebook and Twitter. If you want to see the real havoc of corona, then watch this video from China. Not once, not twice, watch it at least three times. Watch how the police is going though a lot of trouble to catch these patients. You will be shocked to see this video.]

Many Facebook users shared the video with the exact same claim.

Screenshot of the post on Facebook.(Source: Facebook)

TRUE OR FALSE?

False.

The video actually dates back to August 2019 when anti-government protests were happening in Hong Kong. The visuals pertain to an incident of police crackdown at Prince Edward station in Kowloon where the police personnel and riot police arrived after reports of a tussle between pro-government and anti-government protesters.

MTR, which operates the city’s metro line, told local media that three stations - Prince Edward, Mongkok and Kowloon Bay - had been closed as a result of the incident, BBC reported.

WHAT’S THE TRUTH?

After breaking down the video into several keyframes using a Google Chrome extension called InVID, we conducted a reverse image search using Yandex on one of the frames.

We came across an article by Stand News according to which Hong Kong Police conducted ‘clearance’ and ‘arrests’ in Prince Edward station on 31 August 2019.

Subsequently, we searched on Google with keywords ‘Hong Kong police crackdown Prince Edward station’ and came across an article by BBC that confirmed police action at Prince Edward station. Although the visuals in the story were not the same as that of the viral clip, we were able to match a few frames.

The image on the left shows the viral video while the image on the right shows the BBC clip. (Source: Facebook/BBC/Altered by The Quint)

The image on the left shows the viral video while the image on the right shows the BBC clip. (Source: Facebook/BBC/Altered by The Quint)

Another article by The Guardian titled “Hong Kong protests: riot police storm metro station with batons” had similar visuals.

Similarities between the two frames.(Source: Facebook/The Guardian/Altered by The Quint)

Evidently, the video is from Hong Kong and shows police action against protesters.

(With inputs from SM HoaxSlayer)

(You can read all our fact-check stories on coronavirus here.)

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