A video showing some people inside small rooms is being shared on social media platforms.
Those sharing wrote, "The cruelties inflicted on Pashtuns and Baloch in the prisons of the Pakistani army are unspeakable."
An archive of the post can be found here.
(Source: X/Screenshot)
What we found: Upon checking the claim post, we came across a comment by a Pakistani journalist by the username @ShafeKoreshe on X.
The journalist wrote, "This video is not from Pakistan. Some accounts from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan have been presenting it as a military prison for a few days. Don't play every video with your eyes and mind closed. It belongs to a prison called Con Dao in Vietnam, which has now been turned into a museum." (sic.)
We, then, divided the video into multiple screenshots and ran a Google reverse image search on some of them.
We came across a YouTube video from May 2023 on a channel named Oh Con Dao. It showed similar doors and scenes as the viral clip.
Another website named 'FindPenguins' had mentions of this prison in Vietnam.
They noted the Con Dao Island prison, was situated on the Con Dao Islands in Vietnam and served as a penal colony. Famous for its tough environment, the French colonial government in Vietnam and later the South Vietnamese government utilised it as a facility to incarcerate political prisoners, including those who resisted the Vietnam War.
The prison became notorious for its employment of torture, inhumane handling of inmates, and elevated mortality rate. Several well-known individuals, such as Ho Chi Minh, were detained in Con Dao. The prison shut down in the 1970s, yet it has been retained as a museum and is currently a well-liked spot for tourists in Vietnam.
A photo gallery in the article showed similarities with the viral clip as well.
Local Vietnamese news outlet Vietnam Net called the prison, "hell on earth. The cells known as 'tiger cages,' contained numerous inmates, cramming 5 to 12 individuals into a single room. They were required to eat, rest, defecate, and urinate in the same location, with no room to recline.
Here are dummies in a cell to portray the situation at the prison.
(Source: Vietnam Net)
Some context: Insurgency has been a long-standing issue in Balochistan, a province located in the southwest of Pakistan. Multiple rebel factions persist in launching assaults within this region. Many of these organisations also advocate for Balochistan's independence from Pakistan.
As per a statement released on 2 October, security forces conducted the raid in the Harnai region of Balochistan province near Afghanistan, targeting militants from the Baloch Liberation Army, reported by Deutsche Welle (DW) News.
Conclusion: A video of a prison from Vietnam went viral with the false claim of Pakistan army torturing Pashtuns and Baloch.
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