Claim: A video shows former prime minister of Bangladesh, Khaleda Zia after being released from house arrest.
Fact: The video is misleading. It is actually from January 2024 when Khaleda Zia was hospitalised after being sick. It shows her going back home after being discharged from hospital.
On 6 August 2024, Pakistani journalist Anwar Lodhi shared a video (archive) with the caption translated into English that reads, “Bangladeshi people freed their former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia from prison today”.
Another user shared that it shows Khaleda Zia’s first appearance after she was released from house arrest.
Khaleda Zia’s Release:
Khaleda Zia, the head of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), was the first woman prime minister of Bangladesh. She served as the country’s Prime Minister between 1991 to 1996 and then again, from 2001 to 2006.
In 2018, Zia was sentenced to 17 years in prison after being convicted in several corruption cases. In March 2020, she was released into house arrest on humanitarian grounds as her health deteriorated.
Recently, after weeks of deadly protests, and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s resignation, President Mohammed Shahabuddin announced Zia’s release from house arrest in August 2024.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check reverse-searched the video’s keyframes on InVID, and found a longer version of the video on a Facebook page, from 27 February 2024. The caption, written in Bangla, does not provide much information except that she was sick and offers prayers for Zia.
Furthermore, we observed a logo of Banglavision – a Bangladeshi Bengali-language satellite and cable television channel – on the top-left corner of the video. A keyword search on ‘Banglavision and Khaleda Zia’ led to several videos on YouTube.
The same video as that of the viral post was published by the YouTube channel of Banglavision on 11 January 2024. The title of the video, when translated into English, reads, “Khaleda Zia left the hospital and returned home, got into the car on foot”.
An article by Dhaka Tribune published on 12 January 2024 features a picture of Zia where she looks similar to how she appears in the viral video. According to the article, the former prime minister returned to her home on 11 January after spending 156 days in the hospital.
Another Bangladeshi news website Just News BD, also mentioned in a story from 12 January, that Zia was admitted to the hospital and released after approximately 5 months.
Therefore, Soch Fact Check confirms that the video in the viral claim predates Khaleda Zia’s release from house arrest.
Virality
The video was widely shared on X with Urdu, Hindi and Bangla language captions. The viral post received 431.5k views, 28,000 likes and 7,700 comments. The archived versions can be seen here, here, here and here.
Conclusion: A video claiming to show former Bangladesh prime minister Khaleda Zia after she was freed from house arrest predates her release. The video is actually from January 2024 after she was discharged from the hospital.
—
Background image in cover photo: ABC News
To appeal against our fact-check, please send an email to appeals@sochfactcheck.com