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: Sushmita Sen and Waris Baig had a secret child twenty years ago. Fact: Waris Baig went to India for a music video shoot when his son Ammar Baig was young; Ammar sang two songs for Sen and, in response, she was so overjoyed that she remarked to Waris, “Why don’t you leave him here […]

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Claim: Shahzain Bugti said, “Those people can never be recovered who were never born and went missing by their fictitious names.” In the context of the Baloch genocide March, this statement implies that Bugti is casting doubt on the veracity of the survivors’ and their families’ claims regarding the issue of enforced disappearance or missing […]

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Claim: Aviation Minister, Khwaja Saad Rafique announced in the National Assembly that Islamabad Airport will be outsourced for 15 years.  Fact: While plans are being made to outsource the Islamabad Airport, the bidding process is currently set to start in March 2023. Moreover, the national assembly is not in session, and  Khwaja Saad Rafique is […]

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Claim: Mahrang Baloch’s father, Abdul Ghaffar Lango, was a Baloch Liberation Army commander.  Fact: Mahrang Baloch’s father, Abdul Ghaffar Lango was a political leader of the Baloch National Party and a member of Khair Bakhsh Marri’s reading circle. On 21 December 2023, a coordinated hashtag “#PlantedAuratMarch”, was used on X (formerly Twitter) in relation to […]

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Claim: Islamabad police did not brutalise or torture female Baloch protesters and safely transported them to a location of their choice.  Fact: According to video evidence and eyewitness statements, ICT police detained over 50 Baloch women, after releasing them and dismissing any charges against them. The police forcefully attempted to deport them back to Quetta, […]

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Claim: A video featuring the former prime minister, Imran Khan, recorded in jail and shared primarily on TikTok, claimed he has been granted bail by the court and has no pending cases against him. In the video, Khan urges his supporters to prepare for a peaceful protest. Fact: The video is doctored, with jail bars […]

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Claim: PPP’s leader Nafisa Shah disagreed with Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s statement against older politicians, according to Geo News. Fact: Nafisa Shah clarified that the article does not only misrepresent her own point of view, but also Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s statement in question. She clarified that “His viewpoint was not ageism nor that there should be […]

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Claim: The Intercept is an Indian propaganda tool run by an Indian named Sumi Agarwal  Fact: The Intercept is an investigative journalism platform co-founded by Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras. Pierre Omidyar, eBay founder and philanthropist, provided the funding to launch The Intercept in 2014.  On 18 December 2023, X (formerly, Twitter) account […]

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Claim: The HRCP has nominated various individuals, including fashion designer Maria Butt for a Human Rights Award. Fact: The awards were organised by the Human Rights Council of Pakistan, and not the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP). The latter is a reputable and independent organisation that has been working for the promotion of human […]

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Claim: Asim Munir is the first chief of the army staff to visit the United States since Raheel Sharif.  Fact: Asim Munir is not the first Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) to visit the US since Raheel Sharif. The former COAS, Qamar Bajwa also went to the US on a week-long official visit during […]

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Claim: A viral Instagram video from a profile called “nova.space” claims to show meteors hitting the Earth in real-time.  Fact: The video uses computer-generated graphics and it is evident that this could not be real because the video shows meteors firing up with a trail of smoke a long time before they even reach Earth’s […]

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Claim: A Palestinian ‘crisis actor’ has pretended to be a freedom fighter, blood donor, foster father, a resilient patient, a revived corpse, a war correspondent, a contestant in American Idol, a radiology technician and a tour guide. Fact: The man in the images is Saleh Aljafarawi, a Palestinian social media influencer and blogger who lives […]

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