Claim: A tweet from PMLN’s official account claims that the Grand Mosque’s administration in Makkah shared an image of Nawaz Sharif surrounded by protocol officers offering Umrah, with the caption, “His Excellency the former Prime Minister of Pakistan performed Umran in Masjid Al Haram earlier today.”
Fact: The tweet is misleading because Harmain Shareefain is not an official Facebook page run by the Saudi Government, but a verified page of a not-for-profit entity that does not represent the Saudi authorities or the administrations of the Two Holy Mosques. The page also deleted the post with Nawaz Sharif’s image shortly after posting it.
On 13 April 2023, PMLN’s official Twitter account (@pmln_org) posted a tweet with a screenshot of a video showing Nawaz Sharif performing Umrah, surrounded by security guards. The screenshot was posted by a blue-ticked account called Haramain Sharifain, and the video was captioned as follows:
“His Excellency the former Prime Minister of Pakistan performed Umrah in Masjid Al Haram earlier today..”
Soch Fact Check decided to investigate the claim that Harmain Shareefain is an official Facebook page run by the Saudi government and that it posted Nawaz Sharif’s image.
Fact or Fiction?
We searched for Haramain Sharifain’s Facebook page and found that it had deleted the post with Nawaz Sharif’s image shortly after posting it.
We then looked at the verified badge and description of Harmain Shareefain’s Facebook page and found that this only means that Facebook has confirmed that the page is authentic and belongs to a public figure, media company or brand. It does not mean that the page is officially endorsed or affiliated with any government or organisation.
Soch Fact Check spoke to the page’s administrator, asking for clarification about whether they were officially representing Saudi authorities on Facebook and whether the images they posted amounted to an “official visit and reception for Nawaz Sharif from the authorities,” as PMLN tweet implies.
“Being a Pakistani National am ‘aware’ of circumstances and investigated the outcome of such a posting which resulted in certain quarters misrepresenting the post and the standing of our organization of being an ‘official acknowledgement of the visit’ and verbiages such as ‘official page posted ’ and extreme usage in Political pages to misguide people into something which didn’t actually happen.” Muhammad Jibran Khan, Harmain Shareefain’s founder, told Soch Fact Check.
“Therefore, I took the unilateral decision to delete the post from the platform to stop the further damage the post was causing in spreading misinformation and damaging the reputation of our organization,” he continued.
In response to a query, the page’s administrator clarified, “Our page, website and organization is a not for profit non-governmental organisation and is not affiliated with any department of government, including the General Presidency for the Two Holy Mosques. We only work with people in those departments in a non-official capacity to bring news, clarifications, photos and videos to the non-Arabic speaking world regarding the Two Holy Mosques”.
The General Presidency for Affairs of Two Holy Mosques is an official body under the Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs that oversees the administration and maintenance of Masjid al-Haram in Mecca and Masjid al-Nabawi in Medina. It has its own official website and social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter. This is the official account of the General Presidency for the Affairs of the Grand Mosque and the Prophet’s Mosque, a government agency directly linked to the Prime Minister. The gold tick shows that it is an official organization’s Twitter account. Similarly, their page on Facebook also specifies that it is a government organization.
These accounts are different from the Haramain Sharifain accounts.
Virality
The PMLN tweet was shared with 5,930,000 followers and received over 9,072 interactions on Twitter. On Facebook, this post was shared here, and here.
Conclusion: The General Presidency for the Affairs of the Grand Mosque and the Prophet’s Mosque’s official account did not share an image of Nawaz Sharif’s visit.