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A video showing a woman speaking into a megaphone at a protest and then breaking down in tears is going viral online.
It is being shared to claim that it shows a Hindu woman who is being asked to convert her religion into Islam, or leave Bangladesh.
(Archives of more posts sharing this claim can be seen here and here.)
Is it true?: No, this video shows Bangladeshi actor Azmeri Haque Badhon, a practicing Muslim, protesting in Bangladesh.
Although there have been reports of minorities being targeted in Bangladesh, the viral video has been given a false communal colour.
How did we find out the truth?: We divided the video into multiple keyframes and performed reverse image search using Google on some of them.
This led us to a report shared on 1 August 2024 by a Bangladeshi news website, The Daily Star.
The video included in the report matched the viral video and showed the same woman in the same outfit.
It stated that it shows Azmeri Haque Badhon, a Bangladeshi actor, taking part in the student movement in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
It also carried Badhon's statement which said, "It could have been my daughter at the protest, she could have lost her life. Any state that kills its own people to assert power, cannot be a democracy. The government has to take responsibility for this."
Next, we also found an Instagram post on the actor's official account where she can seen in the same outfit and in the same setting.
The caption stated the date to be 1 August 2024.
We also reached out to a Bangladeshi reporter, Md Shabuj Mahmud, Senior Broadcast Journalist, Independent Television, for some help with translation.
He stated that the claim is false and she is speaking on behalf of the students and is crying while demanding a reform in Bangladesh.
He also confirmed that she is a practicing Muslim and not Hindu, as claimed.
Bangladeshi reporter Shahed Siddique also reached out to Badhon on WebQoof's behalf for clarification.
Badhon stated that this claim is false and that she is not a Hindu woman.
She also forwarded her entire speech from the protests where she says in Bengali, "The Hasina regime was not a democratic state because that time that government openly killed people and initiated to a mass arrests. Think about the children who were killed in this, a lot of people were killed and even my child could be one of them. So this country has failed to protect its people and please don’t tag me as political person as I am protesting the killing. I am a citizen of this country and I have to live here because I don’t have any other countries passport."
Conclusion: A false communal claim is going viral with a video of a Bangladeshi actor.
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