Following reports stating that the Taliban administration on Wednesday publicly executed a man accused of murder in western Afghanistan, several news organisations published reports containing a video that allegedly shows a recent incident of public flogging of women in Afghanistan.
The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021. Following the Taliban's occupation, despite promises to the contrary, they have gradually excluded women from public life, preventing girls from accessing secondary school education, and blocked women in Afghanistan from stepping outside without a face covering.
Claim:
Several news media outlets, such as NDTV, News18, ABP Live, Outlook, and Firstpost, showed a video of public flogging of women claiming it to be a recent event in Afghanistan. Their reports carry a tweet by user Shabnam Nasimi, a British-Afghan social activist. The tweet has a video clip, which is said to be from the Takhar province of Afghanistan.
The video shows burqa-clad figures sitting on the ground as a man repeatedly whips them. The reports claim that the women seen in the video were allegedly whipped after they flouted the Taliban's conservative rule that prohibits women from travelling without a male guardian.
News outlet Mirror Now published a video report titled, 'Barbarism in Afghanistan | Taliban Brutally Flog Women For Shopping Without Male Companion', showing the same video.
Fact Check:
The Logical Indian fact-check team verified the viral claim and found it to be misleading. The viral video is from 2018.
We used InVid's Keyframe Analysis tool to isolate the keyframes of the viral video. We then conducted a reverse image search on the keyframes and came across a tweet uploaded by user @HeshmatAlavi on January 23, 2020, showing the same footage.
"Taliban members punishing women for leaving their home alone. Reports indicate this is Kunduz province in northeast Afghanistan," the tweet reads.
The reverse image search also led us to a tweet by the verified Twitter handle of Ariana News, an independent news channel in Afghanistan, which contained the same video. The news channel tweeted a video report covering the flogging incident on October 28, 2018, with the caption, "Taliban lashes two women in Darzab district of Jowzjan for allegedly "making phone calls".
We conducted a keyword search and came across a report published by CDM, which provided a translation of the video report by Ariana News. The report noted that the women, whose names have not been released, were found guilty of violating the Taliban's strict interpretation of Sharia law after police said they visited a local health clinic unaccompanied by men. The report also said that Taliban fighters had seen them communicating on mobile phones.
The CDM report noted that the incident took place in the Beron Sena area of the Darzab district. As per the report, Mohammad Ismail, Darzab district police chief, confirmed that the flogging took place in October 2018 and that the women had returned to their homes.
We also came across a report by Pars Today titled, 'Afghan women were whipped for talking on the phone video' published on November 1, 2018.
The report notes, "The Taliban group whipped two women who were talking on the phone. According to reports, this incident took place in Kizil village of Darzab district in Zhuzjan, and the Taliban group punished these two women without discussion."
Conclusion:
We found that the viral video does not show a recent incident where women were flogged in Afghanistan. The media reports indicate that the incident dates back to at least 2018, reportedly showing an incident from Darzab District in the southwesternmost district of Jowzjan Province, Afghanistan, where two women were flogged for travelling without male companions. Thus, we found that the media reports circulating the video as recent are misleading.
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