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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Crime & justice fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about crime & justice. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

6,836 published reviews in this topic

PA MediaCrime & justice

3,300 arrests have been made in the UK for social media posts, while just 411 have been made in Russia.

Publisher’s rating: Missing context: The source for the claim on arrests in Russia – which uses figures from 2017 – shows it refers to the number of criminal proceedings, rather than arrests. In the UK example, the figure – also from 2017 – is for arrests under the broader category of online malicious communications, not specifically for social media posts. But arrests are made for different reasons across the two countries, with Russian internet users facing far greater restrictions on their use of social media.

FACTLYCrime & justice

Photo of two Muslim barbers who were arrested on the charges of spreading HIV/AIDS disease to Hindus in Mumbai’s Bandra

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a photo circulated as showing two Muslim barbers arrested in Mumbai’s Bandra for allegedly spreading HIV/AIDS to Hindu customers. FACTLY reports that the post also alleged the men confessed that mosques funded them. The review used a reverse-image search to trace the photo to an India TV article published on 18 July 2013. That report identified the people pictured as Bhojpuri actor Irfan Khan and his friend Sanjay Yadav, arrested in 2013 over credit-card theft—not as suspects in the alleged Bandra crime. The review therefore concludes that the image was misrepresented and does not show people arrested for the alleged offence. The review also says India TV, ABP News and TV9 Bharatvarsh published videos reporting Khan’s 2013 arrest. It reports finding no news reports about Mumbai police exposing the alleged “Naayi Jihad” crime in Bandra or elsewhere in Mumbai. This absence is reported as part of the review’s assessment; the decisive evidence described in the excerpt is the image’s earlier identification and provenance.