Video of Police beating people is neither related to CoronaVirus nor from Spain.
A video has been circulating on social media, which shows police thrashing people claiming to be from Spain for breaking the lockdown.
The video shows law enforcement forces scattering a horde of people from the streets using violence. It is shared on Facebook and WhatsApp with the following claim:
The claim also found its way on Twitter, most prominently shared by Roop Darak, who claims to be “BJYM Telangana State Official Spokesperson”. His following tweet (archive) has been retweeted by more than 1000 people –
“How muslims were treated by Spain Police when they broke the law and orders”.
How musllims were treated by Spain Police when they broke the law and orders pic.twitter.com/rorLHNVAxS
— Roop Darak (@iRupND) March 29, 2020
Following post has been share by approximately 500 people
“This is lockdown in Spain. We guys in India are lucky…u just get caned..”
Following post has been shared by 440 people –
TRUTH
The video contains a logo on the top-left corner which says “Toplum TV”. A quick search reveals that Toplum TV is a news channel in Azerbaijan. Using reverse-image search on the video frames, we landed on an article about the anti-government protests in Baku, Azerbaijan from October 19, 2019.
Upon searching, we found numerous videos from October 2019. They were reporting the Azerbaijani protests, many covering the same incidents depicted in the video in question.
It can also be clearly seen that the uniform of the law enforcement spell “polis”, which is the Azerbaijani spelling for “police”. On the other hand, it is spelt as “policía” in Spanish.
Result
FAKE. While the video is authentic, the caption associated with it is completely false.
Journalist. Ex-engineer. Political observer. Cinephile. Highly opinionated. Lives by the motto "knowledge is power".
