Says Al Jazeera tweeted, “#BreakingNews Taliban started abducting minor girls from their home. The parents who are refusing to give their daughters to Taliban are being killed by Taliban fighters.”
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Doctored Al Jazeera tweet makes claims about Taliban
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- There have been reports of Taliban fighters forcibly marrying women and girls in Afghanistan but this tweet is not authentic and includes an unrelated image from 2016.
"#BreakingNews," begins what looks like an Aug. 17 tweet from Al Jazeera’s breaking news account. "Taliban started abducting minor girls from their home. The parents who are refusing to give their daughters to Taliban are being killed by Taliban fighters."
An image in the tweet shows what looks like a bloodied woman yelling on the ground, surrounded by five men.
But it appears that this tweet was doctored.
And a Facebook post sharing the image was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)
We searched for the purported post on Al Jazeera’s verified Twitter account for breaking news and found nothing. We also searched for it more broadly, because even if a tweet has been deleted, an echo of it will appear in Google search results. But there’s none — at least not from @AJENews.
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We did find another image of the tweet shared on Twitter. Unlike in the Facebook post, this one shows the account name "Al Jajeera English."
Al Jajeera English isn’t a real news source. But Al Jazeera English is, and it has a different Twitter handle: @AJEnglish.
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As for the photo in the image of the tweet, it shows Afghan artists re-enacting the killing of Farkhunda Malikzada, a 27-year-old Afghan woman who was beaten to death by a mob in 2015 after she was falsely accused of burning a Quran. Associated Press photographer Rahmat Gul took the photo in 2016.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Aug. 12 that some Afghans say that "Taliban commanders have demanded that communities turn over unmarried women to become ‘wives’ for their fighters." Al Jazeera has also previously reported on Taliban fighters forcing girls to marry.
But this tweet is not authentic.
We rate it False.
Our Sources
Facebook post, Aug. 18, 2021
Tweet, Aug. 18, 2021
Al Jazeera Breaking News Twitter account, visited Aug. 19, 2021
Al Jazeera English Twitter account, visited Aug. 19, 2021
Los Angeles Times, A year later, Afghans reflect on a mob lynching of a woman falsely accused of burning Koran, March 18, 2016
The New York Times, Flawed justice after a mob killed an Afghan woman, Dec. 26, 2015
Al Jazeera, Don’t leave us now, 2019
The Wall Street Journal, Afghans tell of executions, forced ‘marriages’ in Taliban-held areas, Aug. 12, 2021
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Doctored Al Jazeera tweet makes claims about Taliban
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