Old video spread with claim of recent procession
A video was spread on the social media platform Facebook with the claim that the Sheikh Kamal International Cricket Stadium is in turmoil with “Joy Bangla, Joy Bangabandhu” slogans from lakhs (hundreds of thousands) of people. Dismislab’s fact-check has found that the video is old. The scene is, in fact, from a procession heading toward the international cricket stadium in Cox’s Bazar on December 7, 2022, on the occasion of a public rally by then prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
A 25-second video was posted on August 16 from a Facebook profile named “Sheikh Mojibur.” The post read, “Just received update Sheikh Kamal International Stadium sees a flood of lakhs and lakhs of people uproar with slogans Joy Bangla Joy Bangabandhu Awami League brothers please share widely” [verbatim].
In the video, a procession of people wearing caps and clothing of various colors can be seen. Visible in the video are banners and posters with the boat symbol of the now-banned political party along with pictures of party leader Sheikh Hasina. In addition, the Somoy TV logo can be seen in the bottom right corner of the video.
In the video, a narrator is heard saying, “Every procession is like a stream of people as turbulent as a raging sea. And the waves of this stream of people has merged to Sheikh Kamal International Cricket Stadium. As the light of dawn broke, the entire Cox’s Bazar district filled with the enthusiasm of Awami League leaders and activists…” By the time this report was published, the video had been viewed more than 61,000 times and shared approximately 2,000 times.
A relevant keyword search led to the original video report by Somoy TV. Every scene and the sequence of these scenes in this report, published on December 7, 2022, completely match the recently spread video. Somoy TV wrote in the caption of their report, “A sea of people in Cox’s Bazar at Awami League rally.”
News reports on the original event were found published by multiple media outlets (1, 2). These reports reveal that on December 7, 2022, then-prime minister Sheikh Hasina delivered a speech as chief guest at a district Awami League party rally at the Sheikh Kamal International Cricket Stadium on Cox’s Bazar beach. Awami League leaders and activists arrived there in a procession to join her public rally. This is the very scene visible in the recently spread video.
That is to say, the video is not recent — it was taken from a procession held on the occasion of a public rally in 2022, while the Awami League government was in power.
All social media captions, quotations, and news excerpts in this article have been translated into English from the languages in which they were originally posted or published.
