Fact Check: Video of woman shot in head not linked to current Afghanistan crisis
The Taliban have seized power in Afghanistan and captured major cities within days. As the crisis escalates, many are fleeing the country.
By Newsmeter Network Published on 18 Aug 2021 3:45 AM GMT
Hyderabad: The Taliban have seized power in Afghanistan and captured major cities within days. As the crisis escalates, many are fleeing the country. The Indian government evacuated Indian officials from Kabul and an IAF plane with 120 people, including the Indian ambassador in Kabul, landed at the Jamnagar airbase in Gujarat on Tuesday.
Amidst this, a video of a woman being executed in public is viral on social media with the claim that the incident took place during the ongoing Afghanistan crisis. Several armed men can be seen gathered around the woman while she kneels down. She is then shot in the head.
Fact Check
The claim is false and the video is not linked to the ongoing crisis in Afghanistan.
Firstly, it should be noticed that an Arabic signboard can be seen in the background and the man speaking in the video is talking in Arabic. This indicates that the incident did not take place in Afghanistan where people mostly speak Pashto and Dari.
Secondly, NewsMeter found news reports from 2015 that said the viral video is from Syria where a woman was shot during a public execution by Al-Qaeda for adultery. Al-Qaeda is a militant Sunni Islamist multi-national organization, widely regarded as terrorists.
The report by Mirror said the Muslim woman was dressed in a black robe and hijab (headscarf) and was forced to kneel down with her hands behind her back. She was surrounded by armed and masked jihadi fighters, several of whom were filming the killing on their phones. The report further said that before the shooting, the executioner told the crowd that she had been convicted by a Sharia court of being unfaithful to her husband and condemned her for allegedly running a brothel. The same was also reported by Independent and Arabic news organization Assawsana.
A snippet from the video was also published by Orinoco Tribune, New Covenant Network News, and MR Online with the caption "Syria's al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra executing a woman in public in Idlib in 2015 after she was accused of adultery".
It is clear that the incident is not recent and neither is it linked to the ongoing crisis in Afghanistan. Hence, the claim is false.
