Is The Police In US Enforcing a lockdown? No, An Old Video Of A Protest In Azerbaijan Went Viral

Claim:

This is a video of lockdown in America. If you find lockdown in India intense. Then watch this:

Verification:

India is observing a lockdown called by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a bid to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus in the country. With the number of cases surging across the globe, governments are leaving no stones unturned to facilitate conditions for social distancing. However, with the rise in the number of cases, there is a surge in the number of rumor-mongering messages on various social media platforms.

Among them, a video is doing rounds claiming that police in America enforced a lockdown due to the novel Coronavirus. In the viral video, several policemen can be seen dragging the civilians on the roads and carrying them away in the police vans.

The text of the viral video reads, “If you find India’s lockdown intense, then see this video of lockdown in America”.We also found that several social media users shared the viral video with multiple people claiming it is from Spain.

Several readers sent the viral video to Newschecker’s WhatsApp helpline number for verification.

Fact Check:

We started fact-checking to see if this video is a new one or old. With the help of ‘InVid,’ we got multiple key frames of the video. By using a reverse-image search on one of the keyframes, we found a video uploaded on the YouTube channel “Nijat Imran”. The video was uploaded on October 21, 2019. We analyzed the viral video, and the video uploaded on YouTube frame to frame and established that it is the same video doing rounds on social media.

Meanwhile, we also checked the YouTube video’s description. According to the description, this video is of Baku police brutality against peaceful protesters.

With the help of relevant keywords, we performed a Google search. During our search, we found media reports on these protests. It was clear from these reports that the video viral on social media is from a protest rally held last year in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan.

Azeri police detain scores of protesters, including opposition party leader

BAKU (Reuters) – Police in Azerbaijan on Saturday detained scores of protesters, including the leader of the main opposition Popular Front, at the start of a planned rally against low salaries, corruption and a lack of democracy in the energy-rich ex-Soviet state.

According to a report published by Reuters on October 19, 2019, Police in Azerbaijan detained scores of protesters, including the leader of the main opposition party the Popular Front, at the start of a rally against low salaries, corruption and a lack of democracy in the energy-rich ex-Soviet state.

Conclusion:

It is evident from our fact check that the video viral on social media claiming it to be from either America or Spain is Misleading. The video is from a protest rally held last year in Baku, capital of Azerbaijan.

Sources

• InVid
• Google Search
• Media reports
• Google Reverse Image Search

Result: Misleading

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