Claim: A social media video claims to show Pakistani script writer Khalil ur Rehman Qamar criticising politician Maryam Nawaz Sharif after she tweeted a controversial remark about journalist Arshad Sharif who was shot dead in Kenya.
Fact: The claim is false. The viral video clip is not from 2022 but from Qamar’s 2020 speech on Women’s Day, where he spoke against female academics and women’s rights activists.
On 25 October 2022, a Facebook page posted a video with the caption, “Khalil ur Rehman Qamar has strongly reacted to Maryam Nawaz Sharif’s disgraceful tweet on the martyrdom of Arshad Sharif! “
The 31-second clip shows Khalil-ur-Rehman Qamar criticising an unnamed woman while admonishing anyone who “supports this tweet”.
The false claim circulated after Maryam Nawaz, vice president of the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N), responded to the killing of journalist Arshad Sharif who was reportedly shot dead in Kenya, with a now-deleted tweet that many labelled “insensitive”.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check found a YouTube video, published on 8 March 2020, titled, “Khalil ur Rehman Qamar Speech on Women’s Day Bashes Aurat March”.
In the clip, Qamar accuses women’s rights advocates of being anti-Islamic and makes reference to a tweet by Marvi Sirmed, a Pakistani academic who parodied a well-known national slogan.
The clip in the false posts about Maryam Nawaz was taken from the 29-minute 26-second mark of the longer video.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the false posts (left) with the longer video (right):
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Virality
Soch Fact Check conducted a CrowdTangle analysis for the 7-day period from 21 to 27 October using the following search terms:
- “Khalil ur Rehman, Maryam Nawaz”
- “Khalil ur Rehman Qamar responded to Maryam Nawaz”
The first search term received 12,800 interactions across 62 posts on Facebook. The posts with the most interactions can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
The second search term received 2,220 interactions across nine posts.
On Twitter, Haqeeqat TV posted the video with the false claim, which garnered 27,900 views, 14,000 retweets, and 35,900 likes. It was also posted by other pages including Bleed Green.pk, Anokhay and Political Mob.
Conclusion: The video of Pakistani script writer Khalil ur Rehman Qamar criticising PML-N leader Maryam Nawaz is false. The clip is from Qamar’s 2020 Women’s Day speech, where he bashed women’s rights activists.