Video of crowd 'booing Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina' is edited

This article is more than one year old.
Published on December 15, 2023 at 03:04
Updated on December 17, 2023 at 10:04
3 min read
By AFP Bangladesh

As Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina faced mass protests ahead of a general election, a video surfaced in Facebook posts that falsely claimed it showed a crowd booing her at a hotel in Saudi Arabia. The video's sound has been altered. The original footage published by Bangladeshi media outlets featured no audible booing. The audio was in fact lifted from a video of a group heckling a member of Hasina's party in Italy.

The video racked up more than 94,000 views in a Facebook post which says: "A crowd booed Sheikh Hasina after spotting her in Medina".

The footage shows the Bangladeshi prime minister in a hotel lobby flanked by security personnel and delegates. The crowd can be heard chanting "bhua bhua" -- a booing sound in Bengali.

The video surfaced following Hasina's trip to Medina, a Saudi city home to the Prophet Mohammed's tomb (archived link).

Thousands have taken to the streets ahead of Bangladesh's general election in January, with opposition parties calling on Sheikh Hasina to quit power and let a neutral government run the polls.

In November, Human Rights Watch estimated that at least 10,000 opposition supporters had been arrested since protests escalated in October.

The government said it is committed to holding free and fair polls.

Screenshot of the false Facebook post taken on December 10, 2023

The doctored video was shared in similar Facebook posts here and here.

Altered video

A reverse image search on Google found a similar video posted on YouTube by Bangladeshi broadcaster Channel 24 on November 5 (archived link).

The clip shows the same scene as the video circulating on Facebook, but shot from a different angle.

The Bengali-language title of the video reads: "Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina reached Hilton Hotel in Medina".

Unlike the doctored video shared on Facebook, there is no booing audible in Channel 24's video.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the clip shared in the false posts (left) and Channel 24's video (right), with similarities highlighted in yellow:

Keyword searches on Facebook found a three-minute, 35-second video posted by a Facebook user called Hawladar Abul Kalam on November 5 (archived link).

The frames from the one-minute, eight-second mark in Kalam's video match with the clip shared in the misleading posts.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the clip shared in misleading posts (left) and the video shared on Hawladar Abul Kalam’s Facebook page (right):

In both the clips -- Channel 24 and Facebook page of Hawladar Abul Kalam -- a voice can be heard saying: "Leader, we want to talk to you. We want to meet you."

No booing noises can be heard in either of the videos.

Original audio

AFP found the source video -- from where the booing sound was lifted -- posted on Facebook by Barcelona-based Bangladeshi journalist Nurul Wahid on July 26 (archived here).

The Bengali-language post says in part: "The former general secretary of the Italy Awami League was booing the incumbent secretary at an event organised to welcome Hasina in Italy."

Sheikh Hasina is president of the Awami League that has ruled Bangladesh since 2009. The party has units in different countries led by people of Bangladeshi diaspora.

Debashish Roy, a correspondent of Bangladeshi broadcaster Somoy TV who covered Hasina's Italy tour in July told AFP that such slogans were chanted in the event by an Awami League leader.

"It was two groups of Italian units of Awami League. One group was booing the other group," he said.

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