Claim: An image shows the recent protest organised by the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) in Gwadar.
Fact: The claim is misleading as the image is from 2021, when Maulana Hidayatur Rehman led a protest in Gwadar and hundreds came out to support him.
On 28 July, X user @RaziTahirPak posted (archive) a picture apparently showing the protest on Sunday that was organised by the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) in Gwadar, the port city of Balochistan. “Despite all the state fascism in Gwadar, a sea of people arrived,” the caption says when translated from Urdu, referring to the crackdown on protestors who were on their way to Gwadar by Balochistan provincial authorities.
On Sunday, hundreds gathered to protest the abduction and extra-judicial killings of the Baloch people in Gwadar, the port city of Balochistan.
The “Baloch National Gathering”, organised by the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC), a human rights group advocating for the economic and political rights of the Baloch people, is part of an ongoing movement by families of missing persons demanding the return of their loved ones abducted by the security establishment, and an end to extra-judicial killings in Balochistan.
According to news reports, the crackdown by local authorities on protestors who were on their way to attend the protest in Gwadar left at least three dead and 14 injured.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check conducted a reverse-image search of the picture in the claim and found that it is old.
The picture is from December 2021, when Maulana Hidayatur Rehman of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) launched the Gwadar Rights Movement or the Haq Do Tehreek (HDT) in Gwadar, a port city which is central to the development of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Hundreds participated in the two months-long protests that demanded an end to illegal fishing trawlers that had adversely impacted the livelihood of local fishermen, and an end to the “high number of security checkpoints.”
Dawn carried the image in question in a report on the rally from December 2021, which shows a huge gathering of people in the protest.
“The massive peaceful protest in Gwadar over the last few weeks is turning into a popular resistance. The Baloch people are rejecting the exclusive, oppressive and militarised rule. The only way forward is negotiations with Baloch nationalists. Military operation is no solution,” said Afrasiab Khattak, a former senator, in his X post from December 2021. The post included the same image of the HDT rally in 2021.
Geo News also published the picture in December 2021, in an article reporting on the Balochistan provincial government accepting the Haq Do Tehreek’s demands.
Virality
The X post garnered 186,900 views.
It was also shared on X here (archive), here (archive).
Conclusion: An image circulating on social media, claiming to show the recent protest by BYC in Gwadar, is actually from the Haq Do Tehreek rally that was held in the port city in December 2021. The protest was organised to demand an end to illegal fishing trawlers and the high number of security checkpoints in the area.
Background image in cover photo: The Lowy Institute
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