Old video of Myanmar woman falsely shared as Bangladeshi beheading
A video circulating on Facebook claims to show the execution of two Bangladeshis, a man and a woman, in Saudi Arabia. Dismislab’s fact-check found that the footage does not show the beheading of any Bangladeshi. It shows the public beheading of a woman from Myanmar in Saudi Arabia in 2015.
On October 17, a 26-second video was posted from a personal Facebook profile. The post read: “Video of the beheading of two Bangladeshi men and women for engaging in immoral acts in Saudi Arabia goes viral. Was this really justice, or was it oppression and a disproportionate punishment for a minor offense?” (translated from Bangla) The video shows a woman wearing a black burqa being dragged along a road, surrounded by several people dressed in similar clothing. A man dressed in white then strikes the woman with a sword.
By the time of publication, the video had been viewed more than 30,000 times and shared around 80 times.
The video was also posted from several other Facebook profiles and pages (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7).
A reverse image search using keyframes from the video turned up reports published by several news outlets (1, 2, 3). The scene in an image accompanying a report published by the Pakistani news outlet Dawn on January 27, 2015, matches the footage circulating on Facebook exactly.
The Dawn report said that a woman from Myanmar named Laila Bin Abdul Muttalib Basim, who lived in Saudi Arabia, had been beheaded. It said she had been sentenced to death for sexually abusing and killing her stepdaughter.
A report published on the Facebook page of the UK-based news outlet Middle East Eye on January 17, 2015, also said the footage showed the execution of a woman from Myanmar.
In other words, the claim accompanying the video circulating on Facebook, that it shows the execution of two Bangladeshis in Saudi Arabia is false. The video does not show any Bangladeshi. It shows the 2015 beheading in Saudi Arabia of a woman from Myanmar who was convicted of killing her stepdaughter.
Notably, Saudi authorities announced on October 14 that two Bangladeshis had been executed in Mecca over allegations of “immoral acts” at a mosque.
