Video shared with misleading claim it shows Pakistan religious leaders swaying voters in 2024

Published on February 23, 2024 at 06:19
Updated on February 23, 2024 at 06:26
3 min read
By AFP Pakistan

A video filmed in 2017 showing religious scholars calling on Pakistanis not to vote for the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) resurfaced in a misleading context ahead of the elections in February 2024. The call was in fact made after the PML-N called in the military to handle a protest at the time. A former president of the Faisalabad Press Club -- where the video was filmed -- told AFP the clip showed a press conference held in November 2017 in response to the crackdown.

"Fatwa of scholars: Voting for PML-N is a sin and forbidden!" reads a post shared on social media platform X on January 15. "This fatwa was unanimously given by scholars across the country. Deliver the video to all Muslims."

The 27-second video shows a group of Islamic scholars at a press conference with the "Faisalabad Press Club" signage in the background. The logo of Pakistani news outlet "24 News HD" can also be seen at the bottom of the clip.

"PML-N's leaders have lost the right to rule over this country according to Shariat, legal, constitutional and moral values. Voting for them in light of the Koran and Sunnah (the sayings and practices of the Prophet Muhammad) is 'haram' (Islamically forbidden), illegal, and a sin," a scholar says while addressing the audience.

The post has over 6,600 shares and over 117,000 views. The video has been additionally shared on X here, here and here.

Pakistan's two dynastic parties -- the army-backed PML-N and the Pakistan Peoples Party -- have reached a power-sharing agreement that will return Shehbaz Sharif to the premiership after the February 8 election. But the deal has left out politicians loyal to jailed former prime minister Imran Khan despite them winning the most seats in this month's vote.

Screenshot of the false post taken on February 20, 2024

2017 press conference

Through keyword searches on YouTube based on the "24 News HD" logo visible in the clip, AFP found the same video on the outlet's verified YouTube channel published on November 26, 2017 (archived link).

The video's Urdu language title says, "Voting for PML-N is forbidden. A fatwa has been issued."

A fatwa is a religious edict issued by an Islamic scholar.

Local news blog Urdu Point wrote about the press conference here with the Urdu-language title "Religious scholars say that voting for PML-N is 'haram', illegal and a sin" (archived link).

PML-N, which formed the government during that time, has fielded candidates for the 2018 elections.

Faisalabad Press Club's former president Shahid Ali told AFP that the video shared in the false posts was originally filmed in late November of 2017 at a press conference organised by local religious scholars.

In the said press conference, the religious scholars condemned PML-N government's response to protests across the country led by the religious political party Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) in November 2017.

Pakistan's government called in the powerful military to deploy in the capital Islamabad on November 25, 2017 after deadly unrest broke out when police moved to dislodge an Islamist protest that had paralysed the city for weeks (archived link).

Protesters from the TLP demanded the resignation of Zahid Hamid -- who was Pakistan's law minister at the time -- over a hastily-abandoned amendment to the wording of an oath which election candidates must take. The change was small and quickly reversed, but the TLP linked it to blasphemy -- a hugely charged issue in the conservative Muslim country (archived link).

Hamid resigned on November 27, 2017 after the embattled government bowed to demands from the Islamist group, striking a deal with the help of the military to end the weeks-long anti-blasphemy protest (archived link).

AFP has previously debunked other claims related to the 2024 elections in Pakistan here, here and here.

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