Old video resurfaced to falsely claim it shows protests by supporters of ex-Pakistan PM

This article is more than one year old.
Published on June 1, 2023 at 04:47
Updated on June 1, 2023 at 05:07
3 min read
By AFP Pakistan

A video of a mob clashing with police on a road has been viewed tens of thousands of times on Twitter and Facebook with a false claim that it shows supporters of Imran Khan on the Kashmir Highway in May 2023 to protest the former Pakistani prime minister's arrest in a graft case. But the video in fact shows Central American migrants trying to force their way through a line of Guatemalan police as they attempt to continue their journey towards the United States in January 2021.

The 25-second video clip was posted in this tweet which has been viewed about 52,600 times since May 10, 2023.

The tweet reads: "Exclusive Footage from the Kashmir Highway, Islamabad. Huge crowd came from KP, according to the ground reports."

KP refers to the northwestern Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The Urdu-language hashtag translates as: "Come out and save Khan's life."

The video shows a crowd trying to push through a line of police officers on a road.

Khan was arrested on corruption charges on May 9 before he was released on bail. His detention has sparked days of street protests freighted with anger at the powerful army perceived to have orchestrated his downfall, AFP reported (archived link).

Screenshot of the misleading post.

The same video along with a similar claim was posted here, here and here on Facebook and here, here and here on Twitter.

Comments on the posts suggest some users were misled.

"Satisfying to eyes," wrote a Facebook user.

"Salute to the valiant lions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa," commented another Facebook user.

But the claim is false.

Migrants in Central America

A keyword search on Google revealed that the same video has been circulating online since 2021 and it shows a group of Central American migrants in Guatemala trying to reach Mexico and the United States.

The Daily Mail published a longer version of the video on January 18, 2021 on YouTube with the caption: "Honduran migrant caravan tries to force way through Guatemalan police line (archived link)."

"A caravan of Honduran migrants is approaching the U.S. border ahead of Joe Biden's inauguration, creating the first major test of Biden's plan to reverse many of Donald Trump's immigration policies," the video's description partly reads. "The group of migrants was originally anywhere between 2,000 and 4,000 strong, although their numbers have dwindled as the march towards the United States has continued."

Below is a screenshot comparison of the misleading post (L) and the Daily Mail video (R), with similarities highlighted by AFP:

A screenshot comparison of the misleading post (L) and the Daily Mail video (R): ( AFP)

Britain's daily The Telegraph also published a video on its official YouTube account on January 18, 2021 that shows the same scene (archived link). The video is labelled "Guatemala" and titled "Migrant caravan clashes with Guatemalan police on way to Mexico and US".

A news report by NBC titled "Incoming Biden administration to migrant caravan: Don't come, you won't get in immediately" also embeds the video, which is labelled "Chiquimula, Guatemala", a city located about 35 kilometres from the Honduran border (archived link).

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