Claim: Video shows a Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) protest in Karachi against inflation in January 2023.
Fact: The claim is false. The video is from a 2020 protest organized by TLP against alleged blasphemy in Karachi. The video has nothing to do with rising inflation in the country.
On 12 January 2023, a Facebook user posted a video with an Urdu caption:
بڑھتی ہوئی مہنگائی کے باعث ٹی ایل پی کا کراچی میں احتجاج. عوام کا سمندر سڑکوں پر مگر افسوس مین سٹریم میڈیا کوریج نہیں دے رہا ۔ پھر کچھ لوگ کہتے ہیں۔ تحریک لبیک پاکستان اج کل کیا کر رہی ہے۔
Translated [TLP protests in Karachi due to rising inflation. A sea of people on the streets, but unfortunately, the mainstream media is not giving coverage. Then some people say. What is “Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan” doing these days?]
The video was shared after TLP announced organizing a protest against rising inflation in the country.
Fact or Fiction?
A reverse image search of the video keyframes on Google showed that it was first shared on 12 September 2020 by a YouTube channel C110 News.
The 2-minute-long video report titled “Namoos-e-Risalat & Azmat-e-Sahaba o Ahlebait, rally at M.A Jinnah, Karachi”, talks about blasphemy allegations, and was led by Mufti Munib ur Rehman. A large crowd gathered in Karachi and marched from Quaid-e-Azam’s mausoleum to Tibet Centre after leading clerics accused some leaders in the Muslim-majority nation of allegedly committing blasphemy, reported AFP.
The video clip from the false video can be seen at the 0:00 to 0:11 mark of the news report.
A further keyword search led to a news report by Geo News from 12 September 2020 in which the same landmarks as that in the false video can be seen.
An AFP report on the 2020 protests also contains a scene at the one-minute and 13-second mark that shows the same green banner featuring the rally’s name, as seen in the false posts.
Virality
An organic search on Facebook showed that the video with the false claim was posted here, here and here between 10 – 18 January 2023.
On Twitter, the video here received 7,000 views and 795 likes. It can also be seen here, here, here, here and here.
The video was originally posted on TikTok.
Conclusion: TLP did not organize a protest in Januray 2023 at Karachi’s Tibet Centre. The video circulating online is from 2020, when religious clerics protested against blasphemy.