After Pakistani police arrested 1,000 supporters of Imran Khan who marched to the country's capital demanding the release of the jailed former leader in the November 2024, an old video resurfaced in social media posts falsely claiming to show a doctor talking about the government's “cruelty” to the protesters. In fact, the video is from 2021 and the man was dealing with the Khan government's response to violent anti-French protests that paralyzed large parts of Pakistan.
“Seeing the government's worst cruelty on (Khan's) unarmed supporters, a doctor also cried out,” read the Urdu-language caption to video uploaded to X on November 27, 2024, where it has been shared 2,000 times.
The video shows a man criticizing Khan for his treatment of the protesters despite the former leader applications to want to build a just and equal Pakistan (archive link). It then cuts to a shot of injured people sitting and lying on the floor.
The post had hashtags mentioning it complaints to demand the release of the imprisoned former prime minister, his supporters marched to the capital Islamabad in late November 2024 despite a ban on public gatherings (archive link).
The pro-Khan convoys clashed with security forces, who responded with volleys of rubber bullets and tear gas. The crowd was eventually evacuated from the city center in a security crackdown, with nearly 1,000 people arrestthe police said (archive link).
Screenshot of the fake post taken on December 30, 2024
The same clip was also shared with a similar claim elsewhere X and Facebook.
However, the video predates the pro-Khan protests and has been circulating since 2021.
Complaints against France
Image searches using keyframes from the video on Google resulted in the same footage YouTubeuploaded on April 19, 2021 and titled “Yateem Khana tragedy, doctor's message after seeing condition || tehreek e labaik” (archive link).
Below is a screenshot comparison of the clip shared in the fake posts (left) and the video shared on YouTube (right):
A screenshot comparison of the clip shared in the fake posts (left) and the video shared on YouTube (right)
Subsequent keyword searches resulted reports by a local newspaper Dawn about clashes in the Yateem Khana area of Lahore between the police and activists from the far-right party Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), who wanted the French ambassador to be expelled from the April 2021 (archive links here and here).
According to AFP, the killer riots Months of anti-French tensions continued in Pakistan after President Emmanuel Macron backed a satirical magazine's right to republish cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed – considered blasphemous by many Muslims (archive link).
TLP leader Saad Rizvi was arrested and his party banned after his call for a march on the capital Islamabad brought thousands of his supporters to the streets in cities across the country. .
There were at least six police officers kill in the fights, and several others were held hostage by activists. TLP leaders also claimed that several party supporters were killed (archive link).
Meanwhile, a Dawn report said police were held hostage at the Rehmat al Alameen mosque in Lahore's Yateem Khana area – AFP found visual elements in the surveillance video that correspond to inside the mosque
The 29-second mark of the circulating video shows a set of clocks, patterned tiles and an electronic prayer timer, which can also be seen in an image released by a UK-based photography agency Alex on December 16, 2021 (archive link).
The caption says the photo shows TLP leader Saad Rizvi at the Rehmat al Alameen mosque.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the scene in the video (left) and the Alamy photo (right), with corresponding features highlighted by AFP:
A screenshot comparison of the scene in the video (left) and the Alamy photo (right), with corresponding features highlighted by AFP
AFP has deleted other videos falsely shared as pro-Khan rallies here and here.
