Video of UN evidence against Hasina circulates as demands for action on her sentence
A video shared on social media has claimed that two cases filed at the International Criminal Court against interim government chief advisor Dr. Yunus have been decided in favour of Sheikh Hasina, with others still ongoing, and that the verdict announced against her was politically motivated and would prompt swift ICC action against those involved. However, Dismislab’s fact-check shows the footage is actually a clip from a UN OHCHR press conference on 12 February, presenting findings on human rights violations and abuses during the July movement, and is unrelated to the claim.
A personal Facebook profile posted the video with the caption, “Alhamdulillah 🤲 Among the cases filed at the International Criminal Court against the Yunus government, verdicts in 2 cases have come in favour of Sheikh Hasina, and the rest are ongoing. Also, the verdict announced by the illegal international court against the elected Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is entirely politically motivated, and the International Criminal Court will take immediate action against those involved, they have said.” The video has been viewed around 40,000 times and shared 919 times so far. Several other personal Facebook profiles (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) posted the same video with the same claim.
In the 1:19-minute video, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk is seen delivering a speech. A part of the UN logo can be seen behind Volker Türk. In the video, he is seen talking about the international criminal justice system, gender-based violence, and crimes against humanity.
To verify the claim, Dismislab conducted a reverse image search of the keyframes of the video and found identical footage published on the YouTube channel “The Informer” on February 12 this year. The caption reads, “OHCHR – Press Conference: Investigative Report on Bangladesh Protests.” The segments from 1:56 to 2:15, from 2:30 to 2:59 and from 22:13 to 22:44 of the 52:10-minute video match exactly with the video being circulated.
In the video, Volker Türk talks about the investigation report on human rights violations committed in Bangladesh during the July uprising of 2024. Nowhere in the video is Türk seen mentioning the verdict against Sheikh Hasina or the ongoing cases against Dr Yunus, as claimed in the circulating video.
Further verification shows a press release published on the OHCHR website on 12 February. It contains information about the publication of the report. This press release has the link to the full investigative report on human rights violations in Bangladesh.
Several media outlets also published reports (1, 2, 3) on this investigative report. Prothom Alo’s report published on 12 February was titled, “To stay in power, the Awami League government took brutal measures: Volker Türk.” Citing the UN official, the report states, “Despite opposition from the people of Bangladesh, the former government wanted to cling to power. To achieve that goal, they adopted strategies to suppress protests. As part of this, there is reasonable ground to believe that hundreds of extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, detentions, and torture were carried out. ”
So, the video recently shared on social media is actually a clipped portion of the UN OHCHR’s February 12 press conference, presenting the fact-finding report on human rights violations and abuses during the July movement.
