Old, Unrelated Photo Falsely Shared as One of Belgian Woman in Pakistan

The photo dates back to 2019 and shows Czech model Tereza Hluskova, who was arrested for attempted drug trafficking.

A picture of a woman in tears, surrounded by police personnel, has gone viral on social media with the claim that it shows a Belgian woman who was sexually assaulted by people from the Muslim community in Pakistan.

(Archives of more posts sharing this claim can be seen here and here.)

Is it true?: No.

• The photograph shows Czech model Tereza Hluskova, who was sentenced to more than eight years in prison on charges of attempting to smuggle more than eight kilograms of narcotics from Pakistan to Ireland in March 2019.

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How did we find out the truth?: We ran a reverse image search using Google Lens on the photo, which led us to an article dated 20 March 2019 by Daily Mail.

• The tabloid mentioned that it showed Czech model Tereza Hluskova, who was arrested for attempting to smuggle heroin from Pakistan to Ireland.

• The website attributed both photographs to AFP and Getty Images.

We looked for the photo on stock image website Getty Images, using the model's name as keywords.

• This led us to the same photo, which was published on 20 March 2019.

• Its caption mentioned that it showed Hluskova weeping after being sentenced to eight years and eight months in prison for "attempted heroin smuggling," after she was "found carrying eight and a half kilogrammes of heroin" at Lahore's Allama Iqbal International Airport in 2018.

A further search for news reports led us to an article by The Mirror, a UK tabloid, which mentioned that she was released in 2022 after a "series of appeals."

While there are several reports (links here, here, and here) about a Belgian woman being found with her hands tied on a road in Pakistan's Islamabad, after allegedly being sexually assaulted for five days, this photo has no connection to the recent incident.

Conclusion: A five-year-old photo of Czech model Tereza Hluskova's arrest has gone viral on social media with false claims.

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