Claim: A private bank shut down a transgender activist’s newly-opened account, claiming that her income did not comply with Shariah laws.
Fact: The incident did occur but it dates back to January 2021; some websites have picked up the story and rehashed it as a new incident.
News media website Pak 92 News on 29 October 2021 published a report with the headline that reads as follows:
“آپ کی کمائی غیر شرعی ہے اس لیے آپ کا اکاؤنٹ ہمارے بینک میں نہیں کھل سکتا”
[Your earnings are non-Islamic, so your account cannot be opened in our bank]
The report details an incident where a private bank in Mansehra’s Lari Adda closed down a transgender activist’s newly-opened account for her organisation, the Hazara Transgender Associates, claiming her income did not comply with Shariah (Islamic laws).
The report, which, since 29 October, has been picked up by half a dozen other news-gathering websites, gained close to 2,000 interactions on Facebook, according to a CrowdTangle search. A Facebook post by Capital News sharing the report is performing at least five times better than its peers, as of reporting time.
Interestingly, Soch Fact Check observed that three news websites — Nation 92 News, Pak 92 News, and News 92 PK — seem to be posting the same content word-for-word, at the same time, and with almost the same home page format and contact details.
Soch Fact Check investigated the 29 October report and found it to be misleading. The incident of alleged discrimination was, in fact, reported on by Independent Urdu back in January 2021 and by its parent publisher, British online newspaper The Independent, in March 2021. The Trans Action Pakistan, a community organization in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, also posted about it, while the Catholic Church’s website on Asian affairs, UCA News, also picked up the story.
Since the incident occurred in January 2021, news reports from October and November 2021 claiming the incident just took place are misleading.
Conclusion: The incident of discrimination is not new as it occurred in January 2021. Therefore, the reports about it from October and November 2021 are misleading.