Areeba Fatima

Areeba Fatima is a senior fact-checker and investigative reporter. She studied Anthropology at Lahore University of Management Sciences. She has also worked with Fact Focus on an Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) investigation, the Suisse Secrets. She loves working with large datasets to extract meaningful information. She is interested in internet governance, financial crime, political corruption and emerging technologies.

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Claim: Social media users speculate about the number of bullets that hit Imran Khan during the 3 November attack during his rally near Wazirabad. While some claim three or four bullets hit Khan, others allege that he faked his injuries and was not injured by any bullet.  Fact: Imran Khan did not fake his injuries. […]

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Claim: Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf (PTI) leader Ahmad Chatha has been shot dead. Fact: PTI leader Ahmad Chatha is alive and recovering. The news regarding his death is fake. On 3 November 2022, several social media posts claimed that PTI leader Ahmad Chatha, who was shot during the firing incident during a rally in Wazirabad, […]

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Claim: A notification signed by the District Magistrate Islamabad announced a lockdown in Islamabad. According to this notification, except for essential services such as healthcare and medical supplies, all institutions are to remain closed and the province cordoned off. Fact: This notification is fake. On 3 November 2022, several social media users shared a notification […]

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Claim: Pfizer executive Janine Small confessed in a recent revelation that Pfizer was never tested for its impact on preventing disease transmission.  Fact: Pfizer and German vaccine maker BioNTech published a study on the vaccine in 2020 for its approval from Food and Drug Administration (FDA) which did not include any data on transmission impact […]

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Claim: Maryam Nawaz played a video of Imran Khan making fun of her at her press conference, calling his insults “golden words”. Fact: The video was doctored. Imran Khan’s remarks were superimposed on top of a different video which Nawaz actually played at the press conference. On 28 October 2022, a digital content creator shared […]

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Claim: Viral images and videos of a girl crying over a body in a coffin apparently show the daughter of journalist Arshad Sharif, who was recently killed in Kenya.   Fact: The images and videos show Senator Usman Kakar’s daughter grieving her father who was murdered in 2019. On 23 October 2022, Pakistani journalist and news […]

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Claim: Opposing party politicians claimed that the University of Sargodha refused to invite Imran Khan for a political address. While other posts claimed that he was invited by the university. Fact: The University of Sargodha administration never invited Imran Khan to deliver a speech, nor did they disinvite him. He was invited by the Punjab […]

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Claim: Shehbaz Sharif endorsed Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) long march. Fact: A video clip from Shehbaz Sharif’s announcement of the Mehngai Mukao March from March 2022 was shared out of context to imply that he has endorsed PTI’s long march. On 28 October 2022, a content creator shared a video on Facebook claiming to show prime […]

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Claim: Imran Khan called for an emergency press conference at 3pm a day before the long march was supposed to begin, at Shahrah e Quaid e Azam, Lahore. Fact: Imran Khan never called for an emergency press conference, and the long march began as scheduled. On 27 October 2022, several social media posts on Facebook […]

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Claim: A viral image of what appears to be Pakistani men holding up a banner reading “We don’t want Kashmir, give us Virat Kohli” shared on social media. Fact: The image is doctored. The original picture shows pro-Pakistan residents of Kashmir holding a banner that read, “We want independence”. On 23 October 2022, Pakistan and […]

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Claim: Inspector General of Sindh Police, Ghulam Nabi Memon, claimed in a statement reported by ARY News that Karachi has a relatively lower crime rate compared to other cities in the world. Fact: According to data from the UNODC and crowd-sourced global statistics, Karachi is not one of the safer cities in the world. On […]

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Claim: Manufactured potato crisps, which have dark-coloured spots and appear burnt, contain throat mold, which can be harmful. Fact: There is no type of mold called “throat mold”. The darkened parts of potato crisps are caused by over frying.  On 19 September 2022, a social media influencer with 74,900 followers on Instagram shared an image […]

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