Claim: A video shows a woman yelling at Nawaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz in Switzerland.
Fact: The woman’s voice was superimposed onto the footage and the audio is not original. In fact, in the original video, we can hear the pedestrians praising the Sharifs.
On 9 November 2024, a video of Nawaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz being shouted at by a woman in Switzerland was shared on X (formerly Twitter). The Sharifs, along with their associates, turn a street corner and head into a car, while the woman, who is allegedly recording the video, heckles them. Between 0:15–0:18, she asserts that Maryam Nawaz lied about her throat-related condition to come here.
The Punjab Chief Minister left the country on 8 November 2024 for Switzerland for a medical checkup of her thyroid gland, and this video was posted a day later. The location where the video was shot is most likely Geneva, Switzerland, as it coincides with another post on X (dated 10 November 2024) that shows the Sharifs and their associates walking in Geneva and being greeted by their supporters.
The caption of the video from 9 November also claims that Chief Secretary of Punjab Zahid Zaman features in the video. While the person in question does resemble the Chief Secretary, the grainy footage makes it difficult to ascertain his identity. However, some users have claimed that Zahid Zaman was present in Switzerland with the Sharifs, as seen here and here.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check came across another version of the video (also dated 9 November) on X.
It is 18 seconds shorter than the one in the viral claim, but it depicts the same events from the same angle. However, in this video, we do not hear a woman shouting at the Sharifs. Rather, we hear men behind the camera, in particular one of them saying, “I love you Mian Sahab.” At no point in the video do we hear any of them criticising or chanting against Nawaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz.
In consultation with Shaur Azher, an audio engineer at Soch Videos, a sister company of Soch Fact Check, we found that the video of a woman shouting contained fake audio, in that her voice had been superimposed onto the footage. The video in which men were praising the Sharifs, on the other hand, turned out to be the original one.
There are two reasons for the video in the claim being fake. Firstly, people’s footsteps are not audible in it. Secondly, it contains a considerable amount of traffic-related noise, when barely any traffic is visible in the surroundings.
In the original video, footsteps of the people on the street are heard for the first eight seconds. Then, at 0:16, a man is seen running in dress shoes around the car in which Nawaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz are being seated. From 0:16–0:19, and then again from 0:24–0:25, this person’s footsteps are clearly heard in the video. According to our sound engineer, footsteps are extremely difficult to recreate in videos. In the video in the claim, contrarily, no footsteps are heard in these time intervals. This suggests that the woman’s voice was superimposed onto the footage which drowned out the sound of the footsteps.
In the video in the claim, there is also very loud traffic-related noise in the background, mainly car horns, between 0:24–0:32 which is not present in the original footage. However, there is no apparent traffic in the video’s footage. The most that we see are two cars that enter the frame near the end of the video (after the car horns), one at 0:37 and the other at 0:40, and neither of them produce any distinct sound. While it is possible that a large amount of traffic was behind the woman filming the video that is not visible in the frame, our sound engineer stated that this was unlikely. Horns that loud would mean the vehicles producing them were very close to the phone, he added.
Hence, Soch Fact Check concludes that the video showing Nawaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz being shouted at by a woman in the street in Switzerland has been altered as the audio of the woman has been superimposed onto the footage.
Virality
On X, the video with the altered audio was shared here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
On Facebook, it was shared here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
On Instagram, it was shared here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Conclusion: The video with the audio of a woman shouting at Nawaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz is altered. In fact, in the original video we can hear pedestrians praising the Sharifs.
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Background image in cover photo: Daily Pakistan
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