Video From Indonesia Peddled As Muslim Man Tortured In China
BOOM found that the video dates back to May 2017 and shows an Indonesian soldier beating up a pickpocket.
A disturbing video from Indonesia of two men in uniform savagely beat a man stripped to his underwear, has been revived on Facebook with a false claim that it shows a Muslim man being tortured in China.
The one-minute-long clip shows a soldier whip the man with a belt while another man wearing a dark blue uniform and a white helmet, can be seen in the room. Despite the man pleading, the beating does not stop. BOOM has decided not to include the video as it shows graphic violence.
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A Facebook user named 'Allaoui Ahmed Bachir' held a watch party of the video on January 31, 2020, from where it was shared over 92,000 times.
The caption accompanying the Facebook watch party video reads: "Torture of Muslim brothers in China."
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Fact Check
BOOM looked at the video closely and found that the other man in uniform had 'PKD' written on his safety helmet. We looked for its meaning and found that PKD stands for Petugas Keamanan Dalam, which is a private railway security guard in Indonesia.
We also compared the helmets.
Left: Helmet as seen in the viral video; Right: Original PKD helmet
We, while searching on YouTube, found the same video uploaded on June 9, 2017, with a caption, "Star gang children are beaten up by soldiers" (translated from the Indonesian).
A report published on May 24, 2017, by Tribune News used a screenshot of the same video. According to the article the incident took place on May 13, 2017 at the Depok Baru station in Jakarta, Indonesia. The man being beaten was a local pick-pocket who got caught at a railway station by PKD. Read the article here.
On searching on Twitter, we found a Tweet by Lijian Zhao, Deputy Director General, Information Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, China, calling out the video.
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
The video had also been debunked by AFP and BOOM Hindi in January last year when it went viral with a claim that a Muslim man was beaten in China for having a Quran.
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