Protest video from Indonesia shared as Kashmir by FB page imitating BBC News - Alt News
Jignesh Patel
12th October 2019 / 4:10 pm / Last updated: 12th October 2019
On October 6, a Facebook page with the name – BBC News Kashmir– shared a video which showed a confrontation between the Indian police and a group of protesters. The message posted along with the video claimed that it depicted a student protest that took place in Kashmir. “Police use teargas to disperse student protest #kashmirnews #freedom #newskashmir”, reads the message. The post has amassed nearly 1,700 shares at the time of writing this article. It has now been deleted.
Alt News found that the Facebook page, which had shared the video, is impersonating BBC News by using the British news organisation’s name and logo. Moreover, BBC News does not have state-wise offices but its services in India are categorised on the basis of language and not geographical locations, i.e., states.
A look at the ‘page transparency’ section of the ‘BBC News Kashmir’ revealed that the page is operated from Bangladesh and was created on August 6, 2019.
Furthermore, the video is actually from Jakarta, Indonesia and not Kashmir, India. With a relevant keyword search on Google, Alt News found that the video depicts a clash between the protesters and the Indonesian police (‘Polisi’ in Bahasa) in September 2019. “Indonesian students clashed with police during a demonstration in Jakarta, on 30 September 2019, Indonesia. Demonstrations were held to urge the government and parliament to cancel the revision of the Indonesian Code Law and Anti-Corruption Law which weakened the function of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK)”, reads the description given along with a visually similar Getty Image photo shot on Septemeber 30, 2019.
Some of the visuals from the protest can also been seen in the video below.
Riot police use teargas to disperse student protest in #Indonesia pic.twitter.com/8X638iSQ9Q
— RT (@RT_com) September 30, 2019
In conclusion, a Facebook page impersonating BBC News shared a video of a recent protest from Indonesia with the claim that it showed Indian police’s brutality on Kashmir students.
Jignesh is a writer and researcher at Alt News. He has a knack for visual investigation with a major interest in fact-checking videos and images. He has completed his Masters in Journalism from Gujarat University.
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