Clip from UAE falsely portrayed as showing 'women wearing inappropriate clothing in Pakistan'
- Published on December 27, 2024 at 02:52
- 3 min read
- By Masroor GILANI, AFP Pakistan
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"What is going on in the state of Pakistan? Were shameless acts by TikTokers not enough? Now women have come into the stadium openly wearing revealing dresses," read the Urdu-language caption to the video showing women wearing short dresses in a stadium.
The X post, published on December 16, 2024, has since racked up more than 190,000 views.
The video was also shared with similar false claims elsewhere on X and on Facebook.
Comments to the posts indicate many people believed the video was filmed in Pakistan, where many women wear shawls covering their hair and smaller numbers of women wear the all-covering burqa.
"It is just the beginning, let's see what happens next," wrote an X user.
"Now Pakistan is near its destruction," said another on Facebook.
Sharjah stadium
A reverse image search of the video's keyframes on Google showed several posts linked to a commercial event at a cricket stadium in Sharjah, one of the UAE's seven emirates and a neighbour to cosmopolitan Dubai (archived link).
A TikTok video published on December 15, 2024 shows some of the women at Sharjah stadium in the clip shared by false posts. The caption mentions the Mate social networking mobile phone application launch event at the stadium (archived link).
"Mate app opening event in Sharjah cricket stadium," read the caption on the TikTok post.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the false post (left) and the TikTok video (right) with the same women highlighted:
The seven-second mark of the video in the false posts also shows a sign for the Mate app as seen in the screenshot below:
Pakistani news website Urdu Point published a report on the Mate app launch movement at Sharjah stadium (archived link).
A photo geotagged at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium in November 2024 showed same buildings in the background of the the venue seen in the video shared in the false posts (archived link).
Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the false post (left) and the Google Maps photo of the stadium in Sharjah (R) highlighting the similarities in red circles:
The verified Instagram profile of the Sharjah Cricket Stadium also published photos of the Mate app launch event on December 15, 2024 (archived link).
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