Claim About Qatari Anchor Talking About Religious Freedom In India Is False

Credit: Twitter

Claim About Qatari Anchor Talking About Religious Freedom In India Is False

The image of a woman in a burqa is being shared with a sarcastic claim that a Qatari anchor is talking about religious freedom in India. The Logical Indian Fact Check team verified the viral claim.

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An image is going viral with a claim that a burqa-clad Qatari TV anchor is talking about religious freedom in India.

Amidst the outrage shown by middle-eastern countries like Iran, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia over the derogatory remark on Prophet Mohammed by now-suspended BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma, this image is being shared as a sarcastic reply, implying that these countries don't have religious freedom themselves.

It is being shared with the caption, "Qatari Anchor Fatima Shaikh on national TV expressing concern about religious freedom in India."

It is going viral on Twitter, and Facebook.

Qatari Anchor Fatima Shaikh on national TV expressing concern about religious freedom in India. 🤣😂

Posted by Athish Ravikanth on Friday, 10 June 2022

Multiple posts of these have been shared on Facebook.


A Twitter user, Advisor Zaidu, had tweeted this, and that tweet has more than 18,000 likes, and 4,500 retweets.

Claim:

A Qatari anchor is talking about religious freedom in India.

Fact Check:

The Logical Indian Fact Check team verified the claim and found it to be false.

We first conducted a search for a Qatar-based journalist Fatima Shaikh, which did not show any results.

We then conducted a reverse image search on Google, which led us to an article by an American media organization, National Public Radio (NPR), from May 24, 2022, which spoke about the Taliban order of women anchors in Afghanistan having to cover their faces while they are on air.

Image Credit: NPR
Image Credit: NPR

The Taliban had announced in early May that women and girls must cover themselves completely from head-to-toe while stepping out of their house, and on May 19, they issued a non-negotiable statement which ordered all the female TV anchors and presenters, of every Afghani media, to cover their faces while on air.

The image used in the article was credited to Associated Press (AP), through which we were able to source the original image, that had the same description, in their archives.

Image Credit: AP
Image Credit: AP

The article and the image from AP also mentioned that this photo is of TV anchor Khatereh Ahmadi, who works with TOLOnews in Afghanistan. We conducted a search on Google and were led to multiple news articles with her face covered due to the Taliban order. One of them was The New Indian Express article which reported the same thing.

Saad Mohseni, the Director of the MOBYgroup, who owns TOLOnews, had also tweeted this image along with the text, "For those wondering about this iconic photo: here we have Khatera Ahmadi one of our news presenters, preparing for a news bulletin - exhausted. Difficult breathing with a face-covering #FreeHerFace @TOLOnews"

The Logical Indian Fact Check team verified the claim and found it to be false. The image doesn't show a Qatari female TV anchor, but Afghanistan-based TOLOnews TV anchor Khatereh Ahmadi.

If you have any news that you believe needs to be fact-checked, please email us at factcheck@thelogicalindian.com or WhatsApp at 6364000343.

Also Read: Old Video Circulated With Claim Of Hindu Workers Being Deported From Qatar After Nupur Sharma Controversy

Contributors Suggest Correction
Editor : Bharat Nayak
,
Creatives : Yukta Baid

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