After Pakistan police arrested 1,000 Imran Khan supporters who marched to the country’s capital demanding the jailed ex-leader’s release in November 2024, an old video resurfaced in social media posts falsely claiming it shows a doctor speaking out about the government’s “cruelty” towards the protesters. In fact, the video is from 2021 and the man was reacting to the Khan government’s response to violent anti-France protests that paralysed large parts of Pakistan.<\/h3>\n
“Seeing the worst cruelty of the government on unarmed [Khan] supporters, a doctor also cried out,” read the Urdu-language caption to a\u00a0video<\/a> uploaded to X on November 27, 2024, where it has been shared 2,000 times.<\/span><\/p>\n The video shows a man criticising Khan for his heavy-handed treatment of protesters despite the ex-leader’s claims<\/a> of wanting to build a fair and equal Pakistan (archived link<\/a>). It then cuts to a shot of injured people sitting and lying on the floor.<\/span><\/p>\n The post included hashtags referring to protests<\/a> to demand the release of the jailed former prime minister, whose supporters marched to the capital Islamabad in late November 2024 in spite of a ban on public gatherings (archived link<\/a>).<\/span><\/p>\n The pro-Khan convoys clashed with security forces, who responded with volleys of rubber bullets and tear gas. The crowds were eventually evicted from the city centre in a sweeping security crackdown, with nearly 1,000 people arrested<\/a>, police said (archived link<\/a>).<\/span><\/p>\n Screenshot of the false post taken on December 30, 2024<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n The same clip was also shared with a similar claim elsewhere on\u00a0X<\/a> and\u00a0Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n However, the video predates the pro-Khan protests and has circulated since 2021.<\/p>\n Reverse image searches using keyframes from the video on Google led to the same footage on YouTube<\/a>, uploaded on April 19, 2021 and titled “Tragedy of Yateem Khana, doctor’s message after seeing situation || tehreek e labaik” (archived link<\/a>).<\/p>\n Below is a screenshot comparison of the clip shared in the false posts (left) and the video shared on YouTube (right):<\/p>\nAnti-France protests<\/h3>\n