Person thrashed by Chinese army for possessing Quran? No, video from Indonesia - Alt News
Arjun Sidharth
4th January 2019 / 3:17 pm / Last updated: 15th March 2019
A video of a person being beaten up by another person in a military uniform was posted on Twitter with the claim that the person being thrashed is a Uighur Muslim. He was assaulted supposedly because he had a copy of the Quran in his house in East Turkistan, according to a post by a Twitter user @Tkwondo_T.
The tweet has now been deleted. Another user Rabia Azhar tweeted this video on January 1, and it has been retweeted over 17000 times already.
This is a Chinese officer beating a Muslim Uyghur for having a copy of the Quran in his house! Everyone send this out so the world knows what is happening in East Turkistan. China is killing all Muslims. Please Retweet to expose Chinese terrorism against innocent Muslims pic.twitter.com/sFv32fHGfc
— Rabia Azhar (@RabiaBaluch) December 31, 2018
It was also shared by J Gopikrishnan, who is a special correspondent with The Pioneer, with the words “Attn: Indian Communists”. His tweet was retweeted over 600 times and has not been deleted.
Attn : Indian Communists https://t.co/crrbhD2Nod
— J Gopikrishnan (@jgopikrishnan70) January 1, 2019
Moreover, the same video has been shared with a slightly different narrative- that the person being thrashed is a Pakistani Muslim, the reason being the same- possession of the Quran.
चीन में इस पाकिस्तानी मुस्लिम व्यक्ति की निर्ममता से पिटाई सिर्फ़ इसलिए हो रही है कि इसके पास क़ुरआन की एक प्रति मिली जो चीन में प्रतिबंधित है।
इस पर भी कुछ बोलना चाहिए @ImranKhanPTI को। pic.twitter.com/bbabHD7bvM
— SD Tiwari (@sdtiwari) January 1, 2019
This claim has been shared widely on Facebook as well.
Many Twitter users responded to the tweet, claiming that the video was not from China but from Indonesia, and that the person who was thrashed was a criminal. He was apparently beaten up by Indonesian army men. They pointed out the words ‘Ampun pak’ uttered by the person, which they claimed is Indonesian and meant ‘Forgive me’.
Based on the claims made by users who responded to the tweet, Alt News found that the video is indeed from Indonesia and not from China as claimed by several social media users. In an article by the Indonesian news publication Tribun Jateng published on May 24, 2017, it is mentioned that the incident occurred on May 13, 2017 at the Depok Baru station in West Java province.
According to the report, the person was a pickpocketer who was thrashed by Indonesian military personnel. The report further stated that action had been taken against the ‘officers’, who were dismissed and returned to their unit. The video had gone viral in May 2017 and had also been posted on Instagram. It is also available on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTvFpdfpUzA
Moreover, an official of the Chinese embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan confirmed via Twitter that the video is not of China, calling it propaganda to “sabotage relations between China and Muslim countries”.
Fake news! Not Chinese language!! Not even Chinese police uniform!!! This is sheer propaganda against China, trying to sabotage relations between China & muslim countryies. There’s no ‘East Turkistan’ in China. Only terrorists & their sympathizers call Xinjiang ‘East Turkistan’. https://t.co/kCMm8zX6CE
— Lijian Zhao 赵立坚 (@zlj517) January 3, 2019
In conclusion, the claim that the video is of an Uighur Muslim beaten up by Chinese army personnel for possession of the Quran is false. The video is from Indonesia.
Arjun Sidharth is a writer with Alt News. He has previously worked in the television news industry, where he managed news bulletins and breaking news scenarios, apart from scripting numerous prime time television stories. He has also been actively involved with various freelance projects. Sidharth has studied economics, political science, international relations and journalism. He has a keen interest in books, movies, music, sports, politics, foreign policy, history and economics. His hobbies include reading, watching movies and indoor gaming.
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