Claim: Journalist Shaheen Sehbai shared a video claiming it shows the recent brutality of law enforcement agencies against civilian protesters.
Fact: Journalist Shaheen Sehbai shared a clip taken during a 2009 Swat operation, where Pakistani soldiers are seen torturing and beating Taliban suspects in the original 10-minute-long video.
On 19 May 2023, Shaheen Sehbai shared a 45-second video showing men in military uniform beating up a man clad in shalwar kameez, with the caption: “This is democracy, Constitution, Rule of law, Human Rights in Pakistan under a thinly camouflaged Martial Law. Do they want armed struggle against these masked dictators and fascists. Where are you guys and what are you doing, if anything???”
This implies that it is a recent video documenting a case of police brutality during recent clashes between law enforcement and people protesting former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s arrest.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check reverse image searched key-frames from the 45-second clip and found an Al Jazeera article from 2 October 2009 using one of the frames as a featured image. The article was headlined “Video shows ‘Pakistan army abuse’”. The article goes on to explain that the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan had taken notice of numerous extrajudicial killings in Swat in August of the same year. We have not verified the authenticity of the video, which shows military officials beating up a man. The 10-minute-long video originally appeared on Facebook.
Virality
Shaheen Sehbai’s tweet reached 280,009 followers and received over 36,107 interactions and was viewed 1.1 million times.
Conclusion: Journalist Shaheen Sehbai shared a video from the 2009 Swat operation as a recent incident of police brutality.
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