Video From Street Play Linked to Hijab Row, Shared With a Communal Spin

The 2015 video was the re-enactment of the killing of Farkhunda Malikzada, who was lynched in Afghanistan.

A 30-second video showing men thrashing and kicking a burqa-clad woman is being linked to the ongoing hijab row; it is being shared with a false claim that it shows an actual incident of how Muslim women are treated by Muslim men.

We, however, found out that the video was seven years old and showed the re-enactment of the killing of Farkhunda Malikzada in Afghanistan who was falsely accused of burning a Quran in a Muslim shrine in Kabul.

The street play was done as a mark of protest against the incident, demanding justice for Farkhunda.

CLAIM

Those sharing the viral video had written a sarcastic caption that read, "इसे कहते हैं मर्दानगी। समाज हो तो ऐसा हो।". [Translation: It's called masculinity. This is how a society should be.]

Hashtags linking it to the ongoing hijab row in Karnataka were also used in the caption, such as "#hijabrow" and "#istandwithMuskanKhan".

Archives of more such posts shared on Twitter and Facebook can be found here and here.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

We extracted keyframes from the viral video using InVID Google Chrome extension and conducted a reverse image search on some of the keyframes.

While going through the search results, we came across longer clips shared by Russian websites in 2016 that said that the video showed the lynching of women in Iran. That gave us the hint that the video was not a recent one.

We then looked at the floating text written on the video. Using the camera feature on Google Translate mobile application, we found the Arabic text written on it, which, when translated to English, said, "The new Afghans killed her because she was wearing the hijab."

We conducted a keyword search of the Arabic text on Facebook and came across several videos and photos. One such photograph, carrying a screenshot from the viral video, was posted by an Aghan fact-checking website called DeBegad.

A link to an article on the viral video was shared in the caption of the Facebook post. The article said that the viral video was being shared with a false claim and that it actually showed the "re-enactment of the killing of Farkhunda, an Afghani student, who was falsely accused of burning the Quran."

The article also carried links to a story on the play published by France24 in 2015. The report in France24 said that the play was organised by a group of activists and was performed at the spot where the girl was killed by the mob. The play was part of demonstrations organised to protest the killings and ask for punishment for the people involved.

It also carried a YouTube link to a video of the play published on an Afghan YouTube news channel called Ariana Television.

The description of the video, when translated from Arabic to English using Google Translate, said, "Afghan artists depict Farkhunda's suffering on the 40th day of her assassination. In this street theater, Lina Alam, a young Afghan artist, played the role of Farkhunda."

Evidently, the clipped video from a street play was shared with misleading and communal claims.

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