Claim: A video shows journalist Arshad Sharif’s mother. He was recently killed in Kenya.
Fact: The video does not show the slain journalist’s mother. The woman in the viral video has been misidentified.
Fact or Fiction?
On 24 October 2022, Twitter user Sadiq Afridi (@iamSadiqAfridi) shared a video claiming that it shows slain journalist Arshad Sharif’s mother.
The video features an older woman weeping as she praises Arshad Sharif’s journalism and his bravery.
“ارشد شریف کی شہادت کے بعد انکی والدہ محترمہ کا روتے ہوئے بیان [After the martyrdom of Arshad Sharif, his mother’s tearful statement],” the caption of the post reads.
Pakistani journalist and news anchor Arshad Sharif was shot and killed in Kajiado, Kenya, on 23 October 2022. Sharif was on the run owing to the threat of arrest back home for his reporting and comments on the military’s intervention into civilian politics.
On Facebook, the claim was shared widely, including here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
Soch Fact Check found the claim to be misleading after coming across Arshad Sharif’s mother’s video message aired on ARY News on 26 October 2022. The video title “Shaheed Arshad Sharif’s Mother’s Emotional Video Message” is available on YouTube.
The woman in the viral video has been misidentified as the mother of the slain journalist, as seen in the graphic below.
President Dr Arif Alvi, along with his wife, also met the slain journalist’s family at their home to offer condolences. Sharif’s mother is visible in the video shared by the official Twitter account of the president on 25 October 2022.
Virality
Soch Fact Check conducted a CrowdTangle analysis for the thirty-day period leading up to 2 November 2022, using the following search term:
“ارشد شریف کی شہادت کے بعد انکی والدہ محترمہ کا روتے ہوئے بیان [After the martyrdom of Arshad Sharif, his mother’s tearful statement].”
The search term turned up 2,945 interactions across 41 posts on Facebook. The analysis revealed that Junction’s post is performing almost 16 times better than other similar posts with 1,500 likes, 257 shares and 18,000 views.
The oldest post dates back to 24 October 2022.
On Twitter, the claim was shared including here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here, among others.
Sadiq Afridi’s tweet received 306,600 views, 24,700 likes, 9,938 retweets and 523 quote tweets.
Conclusion: The woman in the video doing the rounds on social media has been misidentified. She is not slain journalist Arshad Sharif’s mother.